The Meaning Of The Supreme Court Arizona Immigration Law Ruling For NOvember

Update: A while back we advised, “Stay Focused Mittens!” Let Romney supporters engage against major and minor distractions that Obama is throwing, like spaghetti, on the wall to see what sticks. But Romney should stay focused.

Byron York wants more: “On Monday, Mitt Romney had the perfect opportunity to align himself with the conservative — and popular — side of the question, and declined to take it.”

York is right that the popular side of the argument is with Arizona lawmakers. But if Romney lets Obama leash him to this distraction like a blind dog Romney will then have his leash yanked at every distraction and then Obama will eat him. Stay focused Mittens!

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A lot of people did not know, still don’t know, what to make of today’s Supreme Court decision. We Hermione Jean Granger‘s (and oddly enough Mitt Romney) have our waving hands up in the air whispering “ooh, ooh, I know, I know.”

Big Media in particular was divided on what to say about the Arizona decision. MSNBC went with “High Court Strikes Down Key Parts of Ariz. Immigration Law.” The Hill headlined “Supreme Court Gives Split Verdict On Arizona Immigration Law.” CNN hit with “Blow To Immigration Law.” The New York Times declared “Justices Uphold Key Part Of Arizona Law.” DailyCaller wrote “‘Show Me Your Papers’ Upheld.” Fox News had “Supreme Court Reins In Arizona On Immigration.” Huffington Post wrote “AZ Immigration Law ‘Gutted’.” National Journal said “High Court Upholds ‘Show Me Your Papers’.” “Court Upholds Key Part Of Arizona Law” was The Wall Street Journal‘s take. “Court Rejects Part Of Arizona Immigration Law” stated the Washington Post. Politico’s headline was “SCOTUS Clears Key Part Of Ariz. Immigration Law.” David Gergen admitted “I’m not sure what to make of it at this point.”

“The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a constitutional challenge to a central provision of Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration law, clearing the path for similar legislation to take effect in other states and potentially angering Latinos in a way that could give President Barack Obama an added boost from Hispanic voters in November.

That provision, requiring police to conduct immigration checks on individuals they arrest or merely stop for questioning whom they suspect are in the U.S. illegally, does not appear to violate the Constitution by intruding on the federal government’s powers to control immigration, the court said.

All eight justices who ruled on the case voted to allow the mandatory immigration-check requirement to go into effect. They split on three other disputed provisions of the law, with a majority of the justices ruling that each of those parts of the law could not be enforced because they intruded improperly into a policy sphere reserved to the federal government. Justice Elena Kagan did not participate in the ruling.

The justices said further legal challenges to the mandatory immigration check provision can go forward after that part of the law takes effect.”

Gerstein is correct that all the voting Justices unanimously ruled that the laws’ main pillar, immigration checks, do not intrude on federal power and that there will be lawsuits the moment Arizona performs the first immigration check. Those soon to be filed lawsuits are why Obama and Napolitano attempted today to screw the pooch:

“The Obama administration said Monday it is suspending existing agreements with Arizona police over enforcement of federal immigration laws, and said it has issued a directive telling federal authorities to decline many of the calls reporting illegal immigrants that the Homeland Security Department may get from Arizona police. [snip]

That means police statewide can immediately begin calling to check immigration status — but federal officials are likely to reject most of those calls.

Federal officials said they’ll still perform the checks as required by law but will respond only when someone has a felony conviction on his or her record. Absent that, ICE will tell the local police to release the person.“

“As Obama pleases” is not what the American people want. The DailyKooks and the Obama Hopium Guzzlers of 2007/2008 constantly attacked the “unitary executive”. But now the corruption which passes as the “left” will support every power grab by Obama. But the DailyKooks are a small minority from a rubber room

U.S. Hispanics prioritize immigration, healthcare, and unemployment to equal degrees, according to a new USA Today/Gallup poll asking about the importance of six national policy issues. Twenty percent of Hispanics each mention one of the top three issues as mattering most to them, while 17% name economic growth, 11% name the gap between the rich and poor, and 7% name the federal budget deficit. Hispanic registered voters, however, put healthcare and all economic issues before immigration, which 12% name as their most important issue. …

USA Today/Gallup asked the same issue-importance question of all Americans in Gallup Daily tracking interviews from June 13-14. Among all Americans and U.S. registered voters, healthcare, economic growth, and the federal deficit roughly tie as the most important issues, while immigration ranks last among both groups of Americans.

All Obama will get from his tricks, panders, deceptions will be outrage from the majority of voters and a “blah” from those he courts with unconstitutional vigor. As we wrote, “Latinos are not stupid.”

“Mitt Romney on Monday said states have a duty and a right to secure their borders even as he called for a bipartisan national immigration strategy.

The likely Republican nominee did not address the merits of the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down key parts of Arizona’s tough immigration enforcement law. But he used it as an opportunity to criticize President Barack Obama for inaction on immigration reform until recently.

“This represents yet another broken promise by this president. I believe that each state has the duty – and the right – to secure our borders and preserve the rule of law, particularly when the federal government has failed to meet its responsibilities,” Romney said in a written statement released before he left Salt Lake City to fly to a planned fundraiser in Arizona.”

Romney will only issues written statements when it comes to distraction after distraction that Barack Obama and his Chicago henchmen DREAM up. Mitt Romney is going to focus on the economy. It is no surprise to us that Romney is borrowing from Bill Clinton’s 1992 slogan “Putting People First”. Romney has a banner at his events which state “Putting Jobs First.”

“I’m tired. Truly. I’ve grown weary of trying to defend the indefensible and explain the inexplicable. For years, people have stomped their feet and pounded their fists and snorted “Liberal media bias!” and I’ve always tut-tutted and shooshed them and said, “No, no. Calm down. They meant well. It was just a misunderstanding. A mistake. These things happen.” I spent over 25 years working in the oft-reviled Mainstream Media and I saw up close and personal how the sausage was made. I knew the people who wielded the knives and wore the aprons, and could vouch (most of the time, anyway) for their good intentions.

But now?

Forget it. I’m done. You deserve what they’re saying about you. It’s earned. You have worked long and hard to merit the suspicion, acrimony, mistrust and revulsion that the media-buying public increasingly heaps upon you. You have successfully eroded any confidence, dispelled any trust, and driven your audience into the arms of the Internet and the blogosphere, where biases are affirmed and like-minded people can tell each other what they hold to be true, since nobody believes in objective reality any more. You have done a superlative job of diminishing what was once a great profession and undermining one of the vital underpinnings of democracy, a free press.

The big story here is not the decision, but Obama’s response. His handlers say he is “pleased” with it. If that were true, he would not have moved immediately to throw a monkey wrench into the enforcement of the key provision that the unanimous court found to be constitutional. That is the game changer here.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule this week on President Obama’s health care law. But unfortunately for the president, there are no good political outcomes for him — just varying degrees of bad ones.

Obama hopes the Supremes, who may rule as early as Monday, will uphold his entire health care law. This would undoubtedly be the best political outcome for him, but it still isn’t a pleasant one.

Fairly or unfairly, his health care law — his signature domestic achievement — remains significantly unpopular. The latest AP/GfK poll showed that only 33 percent of Americans support the plan while 47 percent oppose it.

So in the best-case scenario for the president, he is left with an intact law that remains difficult to campaign on since so many Americans aren’t particularly enthused with it. Republicans would also be able to continue to use the unpopular law to their advantage by campaigning against it and charging that Obama wasted too much time and effort (and political capital) — when the economy was in dire straights — ramming it through.

But many legal analysts think it is unlikely President Obama will face this bad outcome. He is more likely to face an even worse one.

A poll of 56 attorneys who formerly clerked for Supreme Court justices revealed that 57 percent of them believe that at minimum, the law’s individual mandate provision will be ruled unconstitutional.

But if the Supreme Court invalidates the individual mandate while leaving the rest of the law alone, Obamacare would be unworkable financially without something to replace the mandate’s function. Even House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has admitted as much. [snip]

The Supreme Court could also rule to invalidate the mandate and other aspects of the law, like the preexisting conditions provision, while not striking down the law entirely. The Obama administration’s lawyer suggested during oral arguments before the court that the justices should do so if the individual mandate should fall.

But the law would then become a shadow of its former self. And the political fallout for the president would be immense, especially if Mitt Romney and the GOP framed the result with appropriate forethought.

Some argue that Obama could benefit if this scenario should play out. The most detested part of his plan — the mandate — would be harder for Republicans to use as a political bludgeon if the Supreme Court nixes it. This misses the larger picture.

The president would catch blame for spending a good chunk of his first term in office, and an enormous amount of his political capital, pushing through Congress an unpopular health care law that was unconstitutional in the first place. And all at a time of mounting public debt and economic turmoil.

Voters would likely see this as gross incompetence. But the political ramifications go even deeper.

Obama has reportedly told Democratic donors that he will work on fixing his health care law in his next term if the Supreme Court overturns it.

What a great pitch to run on! Barack Obama 2012: Elect me and I’ll spend the political capital of my second term fixing the unpopular, unconstitutional health care law that I wasted the political capital of my first term pushing through. Then I’ll get to the issues that you care about with whatever diminished political capital I have left.

Ace of Spades has some thoughts on what they see on the outcome based on who wrote the papers for the majority and dissension for today’s law. I thought it was interesting, wanted to pass it on for anyone else interested in reading it.

Why can’t OTurd just quit and leave the governing to serious america-loving adults? If he wants to be king, I’m sure some american patriot will happyily instead get him one of those king hats from Burger King, that would be so much easier and less expensive than have to suffer through the crap he’s doing to this country!

(1) stating all the dictatorship and ‘without Congress’ moves O has pulled…all his executive orders, health reform shenanigans & bribes without one rep vote, immigration edicts, spitefully isolating Arizona, overriding the Catholic church etc – asking “is this what O meant by “turning the page” and a “new way of doing business” this is the USA, not a third rate dictatorship – should any one man have that much power in a govt with three equal branches of govt…

and

just caught the O ad on tv in SE FLA where O is talking about his two daughters and implying bec of them he has special insight into women…

(2) would like to see the Romney camp or superpac come out with an ad with all those grandchildren…and mention all those granddaughters…O has nothing on MR when it comes girls and women in his family and caring about what is good for them…including those four hunky sons – all married and with kids…

former NBC/MSDNC reporter/producer finally lets the cat out of the bag… there is a liberal media… duh!
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Bullshit. They confess to a lesser crime hoping it will exonerate them from the capital crime they have committed. The problem here is not political, it is institutional.

The proper role of the media is to inform the people and serve as a watchdog over those in power.

They have abdicated that role entirely.

Today, by their own admission, they are part of the Obama Administration. And they lie with impunity.

To repeat, the problem here is not political. Some of our best media people has been liberals. It is institutional.

I wonder why Obama let it be known that he would not cooperate with the law moments after it was held to be constitutional. He did not utter those words himself, but undisclosed White House sources did. I fail to perceive how this revelation helps him. It makes him look obstructionist–just like in Fast and Furious. Either he was being petulant, or else someone is tunneling under on him.

Excellent article, Admin. The Obamanuts like those at Daily Kooks appear irrelevant, absurd, and hypocritical as they embrace Obama’s efforts to rule this country based on his own preferences and self-interests, rather than to uphold his sworn duty to defend the American Constitution and rule of law. Just four short years ago, they wept openly and foamed at the mouth, rabid with anger and outrage at George Bush for the same behavior. You either object on principle to circumventing of laws by the president of this country – regardless of whether you agree with the intended result – or you don’t. You can’t have it both ways.

Those who prefer the leader of this country to be a king rather than a public servant who is bound by law and obligation to the constitution and to the people of this nation, may seriously want to consider relocating to another country. There are quite a few to choose from, where laws mean nothing and where government is not supposed to be of, for, and by the people. I’m sure some of us would be happy to make a donation do help defray moving expenses.

If your blog NEVER comes out with a title that says, we want Hillary Clinton for president in 2012, OR, revisits the bile that the head of the democratic party instilled on it’s own voters in 2008, but your blog regularly attacks Barack Obama, than the odds are that your blog is a neo conservative blog that used to support Hillary Clinton.
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Daily Puma: you need to do your homework before you start making ridiculous accusations like this. This blog has been at the forefront of the effort to get Hillary to run in 2012, and that theme permeates past blogs. And when you call us neocons because we attack Obama, I wonder whether you know what a neocon is. If so then perhaps you can show us where we have advocated military intervention throughout the world, because that is what neocons do. Those of us on this blog come from different backgrounds and different political perspectives. What unites us is support for Hillary, support for each other, and a belief that the Democratic Party has been hijacked and must be liberated by defeating Obama. If that happens, and if Hillary runs, then we will be with her.

This is a guy who knows more about the subject of immigration that anyone I know of–Roy Beck. His reaction to the ruling is far more probative than the crap we are seeing from big media which is an effort to make this look like an Obama victory when it was not. We will see alot more of this in the days ahead, so it is best to go to more reliable sources.
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Supreme Court gives states a green light to follow Arizona’s lead on immigration

By Roy Beck, Monday, June 25, 2012

In all the analysis of whether Arizona or Pres. Obama came out on top in the Supreme Courts ruling on S.B. 1070 today, the key question is: how well did unemployed Americans fare?

And the answer is: Very well.

Combined with another Court ruling on an Arizona law last year, states now have all the legal room they need to pursue attrition-through-enforcement measures that cause illegal aliens to depart from a state, opening up jobs for unemployed Americans and legal immigrants.

Although headlines have focused on the court knocking down three of four provisions before it, it should be noted that S.B. 1070 began with 14 sections. After all the challenges at several court levels, 11 of those sections are still standing and the court today ruled against only half of the twelfth. The one that was cleared today by the Court was the right of police to question people about their immigration status. This may be the most important provision in causing illegal aliens to leave Arizona, judging by the frenzy of concerned reaction by the pro-amnesty forces and the Obama administration.

We have always regarded S.B. 1070 as supplementary to the far more important, earlier Arizona bill that requires every employer to use E-Verify to keep illegal aliens and tourists from taking jobs. The Obama administration also opposed this effort, but the Court last year entirely upheld the right of states to protect its workers in that way.

Combining the two rulings, Arizona now has the Supreme Court-approved model to show all other states that they dont have to sit idly by while an estimated 7 million illegal aliens take U.S. jobs in construction, manufacturing, service, transportation and even some in the professions. These are the occupations where most of the 20 million Americans who are unemployed or forced into part-time work are also seeking a job.

Since 1986, the prevailing theory about illegal immigration in Washington has been one of inevitability that nothing can be done to cause illegal aliens to leave once they get into the country. Hence, Congress passed seven amnesties between 1986 and 2000.

Now, Arizona and presumably a number of other states can be full-effort laboratories to prove inevitability a false theory.

We are heartened that even in writing the majority opinion that blocked three parts of Arizonas law, Justice Kennedy recognized that decisions by three straight presidents to significantly ignore federal immigration law have put states in a bind.

“The pervasiveness of federal regulation does not diminish the importance of immigration policy to the States,” he wrote. “Arizona bears many of the consequences of unlawful immigration. . . . Statistics alone do not capture the full extent of Arizonas concerns. Accounts in the record suggest there is an epidemic of crime, safety risks, serious property damage, and environmental problems associated with the influx of illegal migration across private land near the Mexican border.”

In his dissent, Justice Scalia was much more specific, citing the Obama administrations announcement just two weeks ago that it would refuse to enforce the law against illegal aliens who would benefit from the DREAM Act amnesty that Congress has rejected three times.

“After this case was argued and while it was under consideration,” Scalia wrote, “the Secretary of Homeland Security announced a program exempting from immigration enforcement some 1.4 million illegal immigrants under the age of 30.

“The president said at a news conference that the new program is ‘the right thing to do’ in light of Congresss failure to pass the Administrations proposed revision of the Immigration Act. Perhaps it is, though Arizona may not think so. But to say, as the Court (majority) does, that Arizona contradicts federal by enforcing application of the Immigration Act that the President declines to enforce boggles the mind.”

As if to underscore Scalias assessment of the current administration as a nullifier of congressionally-passed laws, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano only hours after the ruling, announced that she would suspend yet another enforcement required under federal immigration laws. Because the Court ruling will result in a lot more illegal aliens being brought to the attention of the feds, she said, her department will suspend the 287(g) program in Arizona, and pledged that nothing in the ruling will interfere with the administrative amnesty announced last week.

Fortunately, all states now have a bright green light from the Court to follow Arizonas lead in enforcing the laws in the way that Congress intended, even if the president insists on violating those laws.

The advocates for illegal immigrants do not like the Arizona decision one iota.
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Supreme Court Upholds Immigration Law in Arizona

(ABC 6 News) — With a week to go before the end of its session, the supreme court hands down a ruling on a controversial immigration law.

It’s one of the most anticipated Supreme Court decisions in recent memory. Even before it was enacted, supporters and opponents were dug in for a long fight.

Today, the high court made its ruling, and the governor of Arizona is declaring victory.

At the heart of the debate was Arizona’s controversial immigration law.

The nation’s highest court ruled that the state of Arizona does have the constitutional right to implement its own immigration law, but immigrant rights groups say the fight is not over. “Centro Campesino is disappointed with the supreme court ruling,” said the immigrant advocacy group’s Jeff Jurewicz.

“This is a dark day for civil rights in America,” said Deepak Bhargava of the Center For Community Change

“Three of the four sections were struck down, however the one that remains is the heart of the legislation,” said Centro Campesino’s Jeff Jurewicz.

That section requires police to check the immigration status of suspects stopped for other violations. Opponents of the law say that’s nothing more than racial profiling.

“American citizens being profiled and persecuted for no reason other than their race or the color of their skin,” said Bhargava.

Arizona governor Jan Brewer signed the bill into law, while vowing that police would be “held accountable” if the law is used in a way that “violates an individual’s civil rights.”

“Certainly there is a large population of both undocumented and documented immigrants in southern Minnesota,” said Jurewicz. “If this type of legislation were to extend to Minnesota it would discriminate against the rights of the many legal Latino immigrants and citizens in our community.”

“We need complete immigration reform in this country, not laws that treat the thousands and millions of Latinos as suspects,” said Illinois Congressman Luis Guttierez.

One provision of the bill struck down by the high court made it a crime for an illegal immigrant to work or seek work in Arizona.

The Obama administration had sued to block the Arizona law soon after it was enacted two years ago.

It is common knowledge among arbitrators that there are not two sides to a case but six or eight or ten once you get into it. One sided decisions are rare, and sometimes, the best decision is the one that makes no one happy. Personally, I like the Scalia dissent.

“I was wondering about that. Do you know the breakdown for the 3 other provisions?”
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Kagan recused so that the other parts were split +- one vote to equal eight. In multiple stories 8-0 never appeared and the impression given was that provision was also split with the usual “suspects” + Stevens voting to uphold. Obviously very misleading.

Another interesting result was the “Indian-US govt” contract case announced last week; 5-4 for the Indian tribes. I assumed that since the MSM has given the impression that SCOTUS is always split 4-4 good vs evil with Stevens the swing vote, that the 5-4 would follow that formula. However, IIRC, it was Sotomayor, Scalia, Thomas, Bryer, Alito for and Kagan, Ginsberg, Roberts, Stevens against. WTF??

It would be interesting to look at all of this years cases and see if the polarization is less than the MSM reality.

Evidently, the White House didn’t like the immigration ruling today by the Supreme Court.
Homeland Security announced after the ruling that it is suspending agreements with Arizona police.

The Obama administration said Monday it is suspending existing agreements with Arizona police over enforcement of federal immigration laws, and said it has issued a directive telling federal authorities to decline many of the calls reporting illegal immigrants that the Homeland Security Department may get from Arizona police.

Administration officials, speaking on condition they not be named, told reporters they expect to see an increase in the number of calls they get from Arizona police — but that won’t change President Obama’s decision to limit whom the government actually tries to detain and deport.

“We will not be issuing detainers on individuals unless they clearly meet our defined priorities,” one official said in a telephone briefing.

The official said that despite the increased number of calls, which presumably means more illegal immigrants being reported, the Homeland Security Department is unlikely to detain a significantly higher number of people and won’t be boosting personnel to handle the new calls.

“We do not plan on putting additional staff on the ground in Arizona,” the official said.

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Arizona may not impose its own penalties for immigration violations, but it said state and local police could check the legal status of those they have reasonable suspicion to believe are in the country illegally.

“As though we needed any more evidence, President Obama has demonstrated anew his utter disregard for the safety and security of the Arizona people. Within the last two hours, I have been notified the Obama administration has revoked the 287(g) agreement under the authority of which Arizona law enforcement officers have partnered with the federal government in the enforcement of immigration law.

“Of course, it is no coincidence that this announcement comes immediately on the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the constitutionality of the heart of Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration law: SB 1070. It’s worth noting that 68 law enforcement entities in 24 states have functioning 287(g) agreements with the federal government. But it appears the only agreements eliminated today were those in Arizona, the state that happens to be on the front lines of America’s fight against illegal immigration. We are on our own, apparently.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. The Obama administration has fought the people of Arizona at every turn – downplaying the threat that a porous border poses to our citizens, filing suit in order to block our State from protecting itself, unilaterally granting immunity to tens of thousands of illegal aliens living in our midst, and now this. Still, the disarmament of Arizona’s 287(g) agreements is a new low, even for this administration.

More… Jonathan Paton, candidate for Congress in Arizona’s First District, released the following statement regarding the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the heart of SB1070, Arizona’s state-based immigration enforcement law:

After more than two years of legal attacks by the Obama administration on Arizona, the heart of SB1070 has been upheld.

Arizona law enforcement can now do their jobs when coming in contact with an individual who they suspect may be in the country illegally.

I voted for SB1070 because Arizona had to take action in light of the federal government’s failure to enforce immigration laws. No state deals with the impact of illegal immigration more than Arizona. It is more than past time to deal with this issue.

When elected to Congress, I will take my experience crafting state laws to address illegal immigration and force the federal government to take responsibility and secure our border.

It is “interesting” that I haven’t seen one “news” story that says that the “vote” was 8-0 to uphold the ability of police to check status. The impression is that it was a split vote
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The vote was 5 to 3 on this provision. It was 3 to 5 presumably on the remaining provisions. There was an initial report that it was unanimous on that provision, and that is what I was repeating. So what you had, apparently, was Roberts and Kennedy joining the conservative block on the key provision, and siding with the leftist cabal on the court on the other three provisions. That swing block pattern may replicate itself with the Obama care case. Roberts and Kennedy may well join the conservative block to strike down the individual mandate, and with the leftist cabal. And that leaves Obama with a car with no engine. He could campaign on that but first he must answer the question why when he had a veto proof majority in Congress did he not find a constitutional way to fund this program if he was really serious about it.

There are alot of stupid asses in big media, but Terry Moran of ABC is darwin award material. He twists the truth so hard to make this look like an Obama victory that he looks like a contortionist–or better yet Jim Carey in Dumb and Dumber.

so it seems like we baasically have a dictator, supreme ct gives permission to AZ to implement that one provision, and the OTurd’s fed govt says they will no longer cooperate with AZ, essentially invalidating the one provision that the supreme ct just validated.

Update: A while back we advised, “Stay Focused Mittens!” Let Romney supporters engage against major and minor distractions that Obama is throwing, like spaghetti, on the wall to see what sticks. But Romney should stay focused.

Byron York wants more: “On Monday, Mitt Romney had the perfect opportunity to align himself with the conservative — and popular — side of the question, and declined to take it.”

York is right that the popular side of the argument is with Arizona lawmakers. But if Romney lets Obama leash him to this distraction like a blind dog Romney will then have his leash yanked at every distraction and then Obama will eat him. Stay focused Mittens!

Can’t believe I’m agreeing with Rush on this one, but he makes a valid point. Usually, I cannot stand listening to Rush, so here is the transcript:

““With Obama, it’s not the rule of law. He is implementing law that the Congress defeated, as in the legalization of the amnesty for 800,000 young illegals. Congress defeated that, the DREAM Act. He said, to hell with it, I’m gonna make it the law, just gonna do it. Obama wants the enforcement of every federal law to hinge upon whether he agrees with it or not. And if he doesn’t agree with the federal law, he’s not gonna enforce it, like the Defense of Marriage Act. It’s the law of the land. The regime announced within the past year that they were no longer going to enforce it. It’s a dictator’s wet dream to do what Obama is doing. If he doesn’t agree with the law, voila, it’s no longer enforced. It may as well not even exist. That’s who he is, folks.””

United Nations officials refuse to allow observers to read the draft agenda for the Rio+20 conference on climate change, after an earlier draft called for the economic “contraction” of major countries.
“It seems the UN has taken the final pre-conference draft and classified it!” Lord Monckton, a climate skeptic with the Center for a Constructive Tomorrow reported in an email. “We were promised transparency. This is unacceptable.”

A proposal within an earlier draft agenda for the conference called for the “contraction and convergence for over- and under-consumers of natural resources,” CFACT noted. Given President Obama’s oft-repeated statistic that the United States produces 2 percent of the world’s oil but uses 20 percent, this proposal would affect the American economy significantly.

“We aspire to nothing less than a global movement for generational change,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said earlier this year.

Another proposal would spread the cost of green investment throughout society, at an estimated cost of $1,300 per American family. “We call for the fulfillment of all official development assistance commitments, including the commitments by many developed countries to achieve the target of 0.7 per cent of gross national product for official development assistance to developing countries by 2015,” the earlier draft says.

“The vote was 5 to 3 on this provision. It was 3 to 5 presumably on the remaining provisions.”
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Those are the numbers that I found in the fine print…So this is not factual:

“All eight justices who ruled on the case voted to allow the mandatory immigration-check requirement to go into effect.”
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The source of the 8-0 error was Josh Gerstein at Politico. But I saw the same error in the initial ABC report which went on to characterize the decision overall as a victory for Arizona, whereas later in the day they were characterizing it as a victory for the other side, and the earlier report disappeared. Like I said, ABC has had multiple conflicting positions on this ruling throughout the day. And, I characterized it as unanimous as well twice, based on that misinformation. It was a 5-3 decision rather than 8-0.

If I were Nano, I believe I would take a walk across the hall and do a gut check with Roberts and Kennedy, just to make sure that they are copacetic on striking down the individual mandate. If I sensed any reticence or buyers remorse on their part, I would gently remind them that they played nice with Obama on the Arizona law and he made fools of them, by immediately withdrawing federal support for the provision they upheld so as to render it unworkable. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, etc. From Obama’s perspective kicking the Court in the balls before they render an even bigger decision, is not merely improvident–it is sociopathic. Keep it up Obama, and maybe people will start to wake up to who and what you really are. Maybe.

So, I thought he was an expert on constitutional law. Of course his resume was way overstated, and many of us saw that, of course except the media. They are really killing their audience, and they don’t even realize why.

tim
so any terrorists that want to come into US, they know exactly where to go…

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I was thinking about this all day, like a free ticket into our country for anyone that wants to harm us.

Here American citizens have to get groped and zapped to get on a train, but Hell, anyone is welcome to drage their sorry ass across our borders so Barry can imagine he is loved by the Latino population.

Given President Obama’s oft-repeated statistic that the United States produces 2 percent of the world’s oil but uses 20 percent, this proposal would affect the American economy significantly.
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I believe the only reason we don’t produce 20% is because of environmental issues. Can’t wait till someone has the cojones to let it rip and take this argument off the table.

“but Hell, anyone is welcome to drage their sorry ass across our borders so…”
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South of the I-8 interstate in AZ is basically becoming no man’s land. About three years ago, I drove down AZ 85 to the Mexican border. A few weeks later, I read that area is one of the main routes for the drug cartels and extremely dangerous. A year later, I was driving along I-8 and saw highway signs that basically said that travel south of I-8 was not advised.

SHV I have seen that area of AZ,and I was told that there are a lot of problems for the residence in that area. Roving bands of people from across the boarder daily. They come over rob and return across the boarder. It has become very dangerous.

South of the I-8 interstate in AZ is basically becoming no man’s land. About three years ago, I drove down AZ 85 to the Mexican border. A few weeks later, I read that area is one of the main routes for the drug cartels and extremely dangerous. A year later, I was driving along I-8 and saw highway signs that basically said that travel south of I-8 was not advised.

How screwed up is that????
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Screwed up enough for the American Crossroads to do a political clip showing the no mans land you refer to, the signs, and the criminal statistics and say then say this is what happens when a president leaves the door to our country wide open. A vote for Obama is a vote for open borders and the thousand miseries and misfortunes it that brings to the American People.

The first responsibility of the federal government going back to the English political philosopher is to defend the nation and that means to secure its borders from an invasion which brings with it to the American People the risk of violent death. That is the basis for the social contract.
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“Having concluded that it is natural and rational for people to give up some liberty in Figure of royaltyorder to gain security of self-preservation, Hobbes develops a conception of what forms of social organization and political system are consistent with those aims. The condition in which people give up some individual liberty in exchange for some common security is the Social Contract. Hobbes defines contract as “the mutual transferring of right.” In the state of nature, everyone has the right to everything – there are no limits to the right of natural liberty. The social contract is the agreement by which individuals mutually transfer their natural right. In other words, I give up my natural right to steal your food because you give up your natural right to steal mine. In place of the natural right we have created a limited right; in this case the right of property. Hobbes notes that we do not make these agreements explicitly because we are born into a civil society with laws and conventions (i.e. contracts) already in place. It is by performing the thought experiment regarding the state of nature and following the chain of reasoning Hobbes put before us that we can see the foundations of our commitment to civil law.

One matter that Hobbes’ investigation allows is the examination of governments for the purpose of determining their legitimacy. The purpose of a government is enforce law and serve the common protection. Wherever the government turns to favor the strong over the weak, oneSeal of the king might way that the government has exceeded its legitimate function. In Hobbes’ time the rulers claimed their authority to rule by virtue of divine right. God made them King and anyone who questioned the authority of the King was challenging God. Hobbes made some powerful enemies by doing just that. Even though he supported the monarchy as the legitimate government, his philosophy clearly establishes the right of the monarch on the grounds of reasoned principle, rather than divine right. Hobbes secularized politics which led to an increasing demand for accountability of rulers to the people. The impact of this development on contemporary life is profound.”

This is very-very BAD for Obama.. the three legged stool Obama’s presidency is sitting on collapsing under him.. can I say, finally?
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Jimmy Carter Accuses U.S. of ‘Widespread Abuse of Human Rights’

A former U.S. president is accusing the current president of sanctioning the “widespread abuse of human rights” by authorizing drone strikes to kill suspected terrorists.

Jimmy Carter, America’s 39th president, denounced the Obama administration for “clearly violating” 10 of the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, writing in a New York Times op-ed on Monday that the “United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights.”

“Instead of making the world safer, America’s violation of international human rights abets our enemies and alienates our friends,” Carter wrote.

While the total number of attacks from unmanned aircraft, or drones, and the resulting casualties are murky, the New America Foundation estimates that in Pakistan alone 265 drone strikes have been executed since January 2009 . Those strikes have killed at least 1,488 people, at least 1,343 of them considered militants, the foundation estimates based on news reports and other sources.

In addition to the drone strikes, Carter criticized the current president for keeping the Guantanamo Bay detention center open, where prisoners “have been tortured by waterboarding more than 100 times or intimidated with semiautomatic weapons, power drills or threats to sexually assault their mothers.”

The former president blasted the government for allowing “unprecedented violations of our rights to privacy through warrantless wiretapping and government mining of our electronic communications.”

Want more off-the-cuff politics? Check out OTUS on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @OTUSNews.

He also condemned recent legislation that gives the president the power to detain suspected terrorists indefinitely, although a federal judge blocked the law from taking effect for any suspects not affiliated with the September 11 terrorist attacks.

“This law violates the right to freedom of expression and to be presumed innocent until proved guilty, two other rights enshrined in the declaration,” Carter said.

While Carter never mentioned Obama by name, he called out “our government” and “the highest authorities in Washington,” and urged “concerned citizens” to “persuade Washington to reverse course and regain moral leadership.”

I thought President Obama had done something I could agree with when he implemented the Secure Communities program that deports criminal illegal immigrants. Unfortunately, his commitment to getting criminal illegal immigrants off our streets was very short-lived.

The Homeland Security Department is launching a hotline for illegal immigrants. I am not kidding. It is a toll free number that is staffed 24 hours a day. When you call it, ICE personnel will answer questions on how to fight deportation.

Under the Secure Communities program if local enforcement arrests a person for car theft or driving drunk, they run the fingerprints thru ICE to see if the individual is legal or illegal. If it turns out that he or she is not a citizen, then the criminal is deported. Now with this hotline ICE will be helping them to stay.

So, your tax dollars are being used to help criminal illegal immigrants remain in the country.

Call ICE and tell them what you think of this program. The hotline number is 855-448-6903.

…………………………..

Aah so now i see who the plan has been long in the works to get where they are today. So i guess now they’ll talk to the illegals, screw the actual state.

Even more unbelievable…..so they won’t talk to the state but they will do this.

Federal hotline set up on Arizona immigration

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has set up a hotline for the public to report potential civil rights concerns regarding the Arizona law that requires police to check the immigration status of those they stop for other reasons.

The hotline phone number is 1-855-353-1010. The email is: SB1070(at)usdoj.gov.

1 : They have cut off Arizona from calling them to report illegals.
2 : A hotline where illegals can phone and ask for help in avoid deportation
3 : A New hotline from the DOJ to report abuse under the new Supreme Court approved law.

Can anyone else see what the hell is wrong here.? Is this the Twilight Zone?

“Dear DOJ: My civil rights have been violated by a usurping non-natural born citizen President who time and time again refuses to follow the US Constitution and respect the separation of powers found therein.”

I Think we can safely say the DOJ has turned into a home grown domestic terrorist force hell bent on destroying the fabric of the US, can we put them on the no fly list…….because that is what it seems like to me, they have become.

“Here in these interviews we come face to face with something new in American politics–the Amateur–a president who is inept in the arts of management and governance, who does not learn from his mistakes, and who therefore repeats policies that make our economy less robust and our nation less safe. We discover a man who blames all his problems on those with whom he disagees, who disregards old friends and supporters when they are no longer useful, and who is so thin skinned that he constantly complains about what people say and write about him. We come to know a strange kind of politician who derives no joy from the game of politics, but who clings to the narcissistic life of the presidency.

This portrait of Obama is radically at odds with the centrist, pragmatic, post partisan leader that his handlers have sought to portray. It is a far cry from the Obama many remember from four years ago. . . Where did he vanish? Did he ever exist? Or was he merely a figure of his imagination–or ours. How did he turn out to be the most divisive president in recent history? Will Americans finally come to recognize the dark side of Obama in the presidential election of 2012? (snip)

I chose to launch my investigation in Chicago, where Obama first donned his disguise as an ideological wolf in sheep’s clothing. (snip) “You can explain him with any number of words: arrogance, conceit, egotism, vanity, hubris” one of his acquaintance of his told me. But whatever word you choose it spells the same thing—DISASTER FOR THE COUNTRY HE LEADS.”

Obama supporters claim that he has been falsely charged with being a left wing ideologue. But based on my reporting, I concluded that Obama is actually IN REVOLT AGAINST THE VALUES OF THE SOCIETY he was elected to lead. Which is why he has refused to embrace American exceptionalism, and why he has railed at the capitalist system, demonized the wealthy and embraced the Occupy Wall Street movement.

(snip) Shortly after he entered the White House, Tim Geitner warned him “your legacy is going to be preventing a second depression.” To which Obama boasted that is not enough for me. It may finally have become too much for the rest of us.”

(pages 2-4)

N.B.As we look ahead to the November election, the words of H.L. Mencken echo and re-echo in my head. “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American People.”

Obama is really on the wrong side of the coin with the public. 55% want the law, only 26% want to see it dropped……..funny, the 26% is more or less the same who think there is nothing wrong with obama’s FnF EP, so i’m guessing his real vote floor is in the 26-29% range. It is clear however Obama is clearly picking the wrong fight.

Most voters still want an immigration law like Arizona’s in their own state and hope the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the legality of the Arizona law this week. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 55% of Likely U.S. Voters would like to see the Supreme Court uphold the law that Arizona adopted to reduce illegal immigration in the state. Just 26% would like to see the high court overturn the law. Nineteen percent (19%) are undecided.

OMG- Obama campaign ad hits NEW LOW- and we wonder would Obama declare Martial Law to remain the president? It’s a given… unbelievable!
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BuzzFeed Politics CGI’s Ann Romney Into Erectile Dysfunction Ad…

What is it with the left-wing media attempting to sexually humiliate Ann Romney lately?

It only takes a few seconds to scroll Ben Smith’s BuzzFeed Politics to see what the political site’s primary goal is. Currently, Ben Smith and his unholy band of BenSmithers are engaged in a mean-spirited “othering” campaign that, as expected, dovetails perfectly with Team Obama’s efforts to define Romney as a stuffy, rich, out of touch one-percenter.

The last few days have been especially fascinating to watch. Why just today, Ben Smith shared a video about the Obamas recalling their first date. Aww, who would ever be mean enough to kick them out of the White House?

As a stark contrast, BuzzFeed later placed Mitt and Ann Romney together in a phony erectile dysfunction ad.

OT, but if I see one more image of the POS or his wife groping everything and everyone I am going to puke!

The Drudge pic has him pawing Brewer. Last week he was grasping at Putin. Mo, astonishingly, manhandled the queen. These people are disgusting. I do not want anyone touching me, outside of a handshake, unless they’re family, or friends.

Urban Decay: Another weekend of violence in the president’s hometown, now run by his former chief of staff. If you want to see the fruits of a presidential second term, look at the decline of his city.

President Obama and Rahm Emanuel, current mayor and former White House chief of staff, brought the “Chicago Way” to Washington in more ways than one. Not only did they bring a style of bare-knuckled backroom politics of intimidation and cronyism, they brought a statist philosophy of government knows best that has left America’s Second City a second-rate city with nowhere to go but down.

Last weekend was all too typical in Chicago these days, with four dead and 29 wounded throughout a city that’s been home to one of the nation’s toughest gun laws. Chicago has become the murder capital of America with a 50% increase in violence for the past year.

Obama recently paid his hometown, where he maintains a residence, a visit. As Wayne Allyn Root, writing on FoxNews.com, noted, 35 were injured and seven killed in gun battles with the president home that weekend. Included in that violent mess was a 16-year-old girl. Three of the murder victims were killed in one hour on Sunday morning. It was the third weekend in a row with gunshot murders and injuries in the double digits.

The Windy City briefly shone during the recent NATO summit, held in a cordoned-off high-security enclave on the city’s postcard Lakefront . The local Fraternal Order of Police took the occasion to erect billboards around town reminding people that for a decade the city has been 1,000 police officers short of complying with the legal minimum for police protection.

Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas recently disclosed a staggering $108 billion debt tab across various governing bodies in the county that translates to $63,525 per Chicago household. Unfunded pension liabilities make up nearly a quarter of that. Not all the debt is Chicago’s, a city with the nation’s highest sales tax, but enough of it is.

Chicago lost 200,000 people from 2000 to 2009. The only one of the nation’s 15 largest cities to lose people. Of all cities, it fell between Detroit, reigning champion of progressive urban decay, and hurricane ravaged New Orleans, in the number of people fleeing to greener pastures.

As Aaron M. Renn writes in City Journal, during the first decade of this century Chicago lost 7.1% of its jobs. Chicago’s famous Loop, the second-largest business district in the nation, lost 18.6% of its private-sector jobs.

While Obama’s critics delve into his Kenyan ancestry, and his defenders delve into likely opponent Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital and as governor of Massachusetts, pundits and voters would be wise to look at Obama’s Chicago for clues to his past and our future.

Chicago was the political incubator for a community organizer who would become president. It is where President Obama sat in the pews on Sunday listening to the liberation theology of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright for two decades. Its liberal academia provided an educational haven for the likes of the former bomb-wielding terrorist Weatherman William Ayers, who was host to Obama’s first fund-raiser.

Now the wheels are wobbly, and Chicago has become one of those overtaxed and overregulated places where growth has stalled. Chicago doesn’t work so well anymore, having succumbed to the consequences of decades of urban liberalism, and neither does the country to whom it gave Rahm Emanuel, White House adviser David Axelrod and President Obama.

Forget Kenya and look at Obama’s Chicago to find out what its favorite son is likely to produce unrestrained by any further electoral battles.

I did see it on Daily PUMA, but I have never noticed it when I went on that site before. When did they put this attached bs title on some of our sites?

How did the troll get involved in this title?

I will not use DailyPUMA again until they take this bs title down.
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Shadowfax
June 25th, 2012 at 5:00 pm

Like I said,

as long as Hillaryis44 is placed on DailyPUMA under any title that appears that the people on this blog don’t support Hillary Clinton,

…I will never go back to that site again.

Period.
________________

Shadowfax, Texas Darlin, Wbboei, thanks for standing up for what is right. It seems the Kool-Aid Kid has found a soul-mate who doesn’t know a Neo-Con from a neologism labeling pro-Hillary sites at Daily Puma Neo-Conservatives giving readers the impression we support a Republican agenda. When our support for Romney is a tactical strategy for ousting Obama from the White House seeing Obama was unopposed for a primary. The strategy is ABO until the grifters are gone…

I intend on boycotting ‘Daily Puma’ as well. Where the owner has proven himself no better than the mainstream media we fight every day.. I hope this underhanded attack on our mission of unseating Obama goes viral throughout the Hillary community and they respond in kind.

Seeing the Arizona State police are NOT mentioned in the list provided by HTA- They may be exempt from Obama’s latest dictatorial as well as Arizona’s National Guard which would be within Governor Brewer’s jurisdiction. Governor Brewer is going to stand up to Obama and the federal government and like us, is doing the right thing, her job, protecting the state and the citizens of Arizona. She is quite a gal!

I’ve not been following the situation last mentioned here at 9:17 AM, but IMO Obama is wearing out two weapons of last resort simultaneously(mudslinging & race card). A back-handed accomplishment, I suppose. In fact, with a win in November, I could even picture him taking credit for having eliminated those types of behavior.

Interesting. Almost every media outlet and blog that I have seen is trumpeting (with approval or horror) that SCOTUS found life sentences with no parole for minors to be unconstitutional.

They did no such thing. What they found “cruel and unusual” was mandatory sentences of that sort applied to minors. In the case of minors, courts must now decide on an individual basis whether such a harsh sentence is warranted.

Words. They have meanings and stuff. Learn how they work before you report.

The lesson from today is that if you are happy with Obama acting like a king and issuing edicts and fatwas, vote for him in November. The American people are against the Fast & Furious executive privilege edict. New poll: Obama’s executive-privilege assertion not as popular as WH imagined. The American People are not stupid when presented with the facts.
Pass the butter he is TOAST!!! 😆

Seeing the Arizona State police are NOT mentioned in the list provided by HTA- They may be exempt from Obama’s latest dictatorial as well as Arizona’s National Guard which would be within Governor Brewer’s jurisdiction. Governor Brewer is going to stand up to Obama and the federal government and like us, is doing the right thing, her job, protecting the state and the citizens of Arizona. She is quite a gal!

Who(m) is more deranged? Obama, big media or the ignoranti who voted for him? (Close question). From Arab Spring, to broken borders, to bowing to foreign depots, to rolling over to Putin, to bending over for Iran, from launching a new war where there is no vital US interest at stake, he has certainly made good on the promise below, hasn’t he. Despotic.
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“As I’ve said about the flag pin, I don’t want to be perceived as taking sides,” Obama said. “There are a lot of people in the world to whom the American flag is a symbol of oppression. And the anthem itself conveys a war-like message. You know, the bombs bursting in air and all. It should be swapped for something less parochial and less bellicose. I like the song ‘I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing.’ If that were our anthem, then I might salute it.”

‘As I’ve said about the flag pin, I don’t want to be perceived as taking sides,”

That has to be one of the most chilling and most illuminating comments ever made by a presidential candidate.

Why run for president if you don’t intend to stand on the side of citizens? OK, I know the answer, of course, he wants to “fundamentally transform America” and if he has been successful nowhere else he has succeeded in that.

How in the world he got so many millions of people to vote against their own best interests is truly beyond me.

“Y]ur privilege assertion means one of two things,” Issa wrote to the president in a letter dated June 25. “Either you or your most senior advisors were involved in managing Operation Fast & Furious and the fallout from it, including the false February 4, 2011 letter provided by the attorney general to the committee, or, you are asserting a presidential power that you know to be unjustified solely for the purpose of further obstructing a congressional investigation.”

Oh now this is interesting…..et tu brutus….are things this bad for Obama.

McCaskill May Skip Party’s Convention

Yet another possible setback for the Democratic party. According to the Saint Louis Beacon, Missouri senator Claire McCaskill, who is in the middle of a tough reelection fight, might skip the Democratic convention in September.

“A campaign aide said the senator’s schedule for September was still in flux,” the Beacon reports. “McCaskill expects to be in a tough re-election battle.”

McCaskill had missed the state Democratic convention several weeks ago because her mother has been ill. She did make the party’s biggest fundraising event of the year, the Jefferson-Jackson dinner, last Friday.

McCaskill also skipped the 2004 Democratic presidential convention in Boston because she was engaged in a spirited contest for governor. McCaskill was in a difficult political position that year because she was challenging a fellow Democrat already holding the office, then-Gov. Bob Holden.

The national convention that year was held in late July, just weeks before Missouri’s 2004 presidential primary, in which McCaskill defeated Holden. She lost that November to the Republican nominee, Matt Blunt.

Skipping the Democratic convention would be a signal to both Missouri voters and the national party that McCaskill wants to distance herself from President Obama.

When Hitler wanted to subjugate the German people, he proclaimed that every household deserved a car. Thus was born the “Volkswagen” or peoples’ car. Though cheap, they were cars, widely available, and from a benevolent leader whom they believed cared for their good. Even the narcissistic, megalomaniacal Hitler didn’t have the audacity to call them “Hitler cars.”

“As I’ve said about the flag pin, I don’t want to be perceived as taking sides,” Obama said……”
*******
If he actually believed that, then he would have some convictions beyond his narcissism. A Jehovah’s Witness refusing to salute the flag has convictions, Obama does it to piss people off. No different than Barry going to an NAACP convention and talking about Black men sitting on the sofa and feeding their kids cold fried chicken for breakfast.

Tell that to Barack Obama as he waits this week to learn the fate of his landmark health care legislation, achieved through such fierce effort, meant to be a cornerstone of his legacy, and now utterly out of his hands.

Or as he watches the unfolding debt crisis in Europe, which could capsize the American economy between now and Election Day. He has minimal sway over how European leaders handle it. He has everything to lose if the job is botched.

Each month he braces for new Labor Department jobs numbers, knowing that his actions at this stage can’t influence them much before November and knowing, at the same time, that they could save or doom him.

On most fronts and in many ways, his presidency right now is an exercise in hoping and in holding his breath. He attained the most formidable station in the world only to experience a flimsy degree of control.

He’s hardly the first president to cross into this cruel limbo, where every hiccup in the domestic economy and spasm abroad is a potential death knell — or a mercy.

But how many presidents, at least in recent decades, have known something precisely like the Supreme Court’s possible erasure of the Affordable Care Act? How many have confronted a Congress this wholly paralyzed by partisan rancor and this steadfastly unyielding?

How many have done so after such an accelerated and charmed political prelude, during which they exerted such control over their own narratives?

While most politicians write their stories once they’ve laid some claim to the spotlight and are already operating in its skeptical glare, Obama did so years in advance, setting the stage long before he strode onto it. The first edition of “Dreams From My Father,” a framing device for the campaigns and speeches to come, was published in 1995. He wasn’t even an Illinois state senator yet.

It was an act of careful and considered self-definition, and with the publication of David Maraniss’s new biography of Obama earlier this month, we learned just how careful and considered. Obama tailored characters to suit his themes and invented a few details of his family’s past, saying that a step-grandfather was killed in combat against Dutch troops in Indonesia when he really, according to Maraniss, died in a fall from a chair as he hung drapes.

One of the most widely cited observations in Maraniss’s biography, “Barack Obama: The Story,” is that he had a “determination to avoid life’s traps.” He refused to let circumstances box him in; craved room to maneuver; kept his options open. In college he floated between cultures and political and social groups, studiously avoiding commitment. In the Illinois State Senate, he stood out in part for the frequency with which he voted “present” rather than yea or nay. He wouldn’t be pinned or pigeonholed.

And now? He’s beholden to lawmakers’ whims, buffeted by global winds, as much a spectator as an agent of the most important developments around him, a leader of the free world who follows the news like the rest of us. Against Obama’s wishes and will, his attorney general is investigated and excoriated by a House panel. His jobs bill languishes. Egypt charts a once unexpected course, electing an Islamist president. The Syrian government pursues a bloody crackdown against its people, ignoring the Obama administration’s protests.

At times he looks dazed, and flails. To focus his economic message, he gave an unfocused 54-minute speech on the apparent theory that the more sentences in the mix, the greater the odds of a keeper.

Less than a week later, he stepped up to a lectern at the end of a conference of world leaders in Mexico and rambled some more, whatever particular point he intended to highlight getting lost in a wonky, windy tutorial on the European economy. He stammered. Sputtered. Slowed down to the point where he almost went into oratorical reverse.

Much has been made of his recent executive decision regarding young illegal immigrants as an act of sheer political calculation. It may well be. But I wonder if there wasn’t an emotional motivation as well — if he wasn’t trying to find one small patch of ground on which he could have his unchallenged say and way.

Because the hell of his situation is its amalgam of full responsibility for so much and impotence in the face of most of it. I suppose that’s long been one definition of the presidency, but it has seldom fit as well as now. In the twilight of his first term, Obama is learning how unscripted history ultimately is. A second term may hinge on the nifty trick, not yet mastered, of projecting more command than he actually wields.

Y]ur privilege assertion means one of two things,” Issa wrote to the president in a letter dated June 25. “Either you or your most senior advisors were involved in managing Operation Fast & Furious and the fallout from it, including the false February 4, 2011 letter provided by the attorney general to the committee, or, you are asserting a presidential power that you know to be unjustified solely for the purpose of further obstructing a congressional investigation.”
——————————-
Will they vote on Thursday? Or will there be another delay. I doubt the White House will comply, even though the polls are running 2 to 1 against them.

In that case, the only man who can answer that question is my old friend John Boehner.

That alone is enough to make me nervous. And my apprehensions are not alleviated when a cover-up artist like Elija Cummings praise Boehner as a fair man, who will restrain bad boy Issa from proceeding with the vote. After 18 months of obstruction, Elija looks into the camera with those sad hound dog eyes, and begs us to be patient.

All things come to him who waits–like a second term.

Nothing comes to him who waits–like a failed investigation.

Issa as well concedes that ultimately it is the Speaker’s decision. What me worry?

Fox news report “suggests that Thomas Donilon, the national security adviser, is a likely source in The Times reporting, considering he is “the commenter of record on events.”
——————
No surprise. Everyone in Washington knew it. Everyone. According to Pat Caddell. And that was 2 weeks ago. Two weeks ago, and nothing happens until now?

I wonder why they picked today that they dropped Obama and Donilon in it. Could it be because Obama has pissed everyone off royally yesterday with his emperor size strop against the rule of law. I have a feeling people in DC are concerned he is really overstepping his bounds and are making moves against him. It would not surprise me at all if help was coming from the Dem side to remove him.

“The nationalism in the Arizona case might be a harbinger of similar deference [to the federal government] on health care,” Rosen added. “Things might well come out differently, but if Roberts chooses [to uphold the health law], the Arizona case could be a model of his success in achieving that.”

A political science professor at Southern Methodist University, Joseph Kobylka, also said Roberts’s role in the immigration case might have some implications for the health care ruling.

“The Arizona case is obviously about federal power, though in a different area,” Kobylka said. “I don’t have a real good sense of how this is going to pan out — I don’t think anyone does — but the fact that he was in the majority in the Arizona case speaks to me either of a more general deference to federal power or a strategic sense, either of which would favor [upholding] the health care policy.”

“It is very interesting and might signal the kind of role that he could play in health care, if he chose,” Rosen said. “He and Justice Kennedy joined the three liberals in a bipartisan and nationalistic opinion. It was notably moderate in its tone and scope, in contrast with the partisan and states’ rights dissents from Justices [Clarence] Thomas and [Antonin] Scalia.”

“The nationalism in the Arizona case might be a harbinger of similar deference [to the federal government] on health care,” Rosen added. “Things might well come out differently, but if Roberts chooses [to uphold the health law], the Arizona case could be a model of his success in achieving that.”

Attorney General Eric Holder avoided commenting on the Fast and Furious scandal in Boston today. The Boston Herald reports:

Embattled Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. refused to say today whether he would consider resigning if a federal probe into the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ disastrous “Fast and Furious” operation threatens President Obama’s re-election.

The question was posed to Holder by a Herald reporter at the Seaport World Trade Center, where he delivered a keynote address on the state of civil rights to a packed room of federal prosecutors and local law enforcement. Holder kept on walking and didn’t answer.

In just two days, the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to take a historic vote, potentially to hold Holder in contempt of Congress for allegedly refusing to turn over documents about the two-year gun-tracking investigation in Mexico that resulted in the murder of a Border Patrol agent.

Later, Holder made an oblique reference to the House vote scheduled for Thursday on whether to hold the attorney general in contempt. “It’s going to get really busy on Thursday, apparently,” Holder said, according to the Boston Herald. Holder’s comment was reportedly met with “awkward laughs.”

A self-effacing Holder drew awkward laughs from the symposium hosted by longtime pal U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz when, while touching upon how busy his schedule is, he said, “It’s going to get really busy on Thursday, apparently.”

As far as the HellCare Bill is concerned, the commerce clause is the thorn on this black rose.

They would have to stretch the mandatory aspect further than it’s ever been intended, and that IMO will not be passed and will break the Bill as it stands.

Will the Dims scramble to try and fix it by November? Yes, but they do not have the majority of votes, so they are toast and this Bill will never fly because it was thrown together with duct tape and used chewing gum, and the Supreme’s will cripple it to the point it can not stand (pay for itself).

“Democrats canceled a political convention kick-off event at the Charlotte Motor Speedway and will move the activities to Charlotte’s main business district, the convention’s host committee announced.

“While we regret having to move CarolinaFest away from our great partners at the Charlotte Motor Speedway and the City of Concord, we are thrilled with the opportunity that comes with hosting this event in Uptown Charlotte,” said Dan Murrey, the executive director of the Charlotte in 2012 Convention Host Committee.

The move comes as party planners are grappling with a fundraising deficit of roughly $27 million, according to two people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to discuss internal party politics. With a party ban on direct contributions from corporations, the host committee has raised less than $10 million, well short of its $36.6 million goal, said one of the people.

Murrey said that logistics, not costs, were behind the decision to cancel the Speedway event. [snip]

In January, Steve Kerrigan, chief executive officer of the convention committee, said that Democrats were shortening their convention from four days to three “to make room for a day to organize and celebrate the Carolinas, Virginia and the South and kick off the convention at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Labor Day,” Sept. 3.

Kerrigan also announced that Obama would accept his party’s nomination at the almost 74,000-seat Bank of America Stadium, home of the Carolina Panthers professional football team. The outdoor finale would echo Obama’s convention speech at Invesco Field in Denver four years ago.

While the Democrats will receive a $50 million grant from the Department of Homeland Security to defray police costs for the Sept. 4-6 convention, security for the Speedway festival may not have been eligible because the event isn’t part of the official convention proceedings. [snip]

Last week, the U.S. Senate voted 95-4 for a measure that would end public funding for both parties’ national nominating conventions, adopting an amendment from Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn.

Coburn has argued that it’s hypocritical for lawmakers to spend public money on their party conventions after criticizing the General Services Administration for spending $823,000 on a 2010 conference near Las Vegas.”

A day after killing Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman passed a police lie detector test when asked if he confronted the teenager and whether he feared for his life “when you shot the guy,” according to documents released today by Florida prosecutors.

According to a “confidential report” prepared by the Sanford Police Department, Zimmerman willingly submitted to a computer voice stress analyzer (CVSA) “truth verification” on February 27. Investigators concluded that he “has told substantially the complete truth in regards to this examination.”

Along with questions about whether his first name was George and if it was Monday, Zimmerman was asked, “Did you confront the guy you shot?’ He answered, “No.” He was also asked, “Were you in fear for your life, when you shot the guy.” Zimmerman replied, “Yes.”

“We are past the point where Obama can win a referendum election, regardless of whether it is on him or the economy. The success of his campaign is contingent upon two things. First, when focusing on the narrow sliver of undecided voters, between 6 and 8 percent of the electorate, the Obama team must make its candidate the lesser of two evils. It has to make the prospect of a Mitt Romney presidency so unpalatable that about half of those undecided voters will begrudgingly vote for reelection. Polling focusing on the undecided voters reveals they are a deeply pessimistic and angry segment of the electorate and don’t particularly like either candidate (fitting, because they don’t tend to like politicians). But they show signs of being more conservative than not. One unpublished analysis gives Republicans a 10-point advantage on the generic congressional ballot test among those undecided about the presidential race. Close analysis of the numbers shows that Obama might have an edge with between a third and a quarter of the currently undecided bloc. That’s cutting things awfully close.

The second key is turnout. African-Americans look solid for Obama and very likely to vote in high numbers, but young and Latino voters’ turnout appears problematic. Obama’s recent announcement of a newly articulated Dream Act-light policy could help, but it is too soon to see any data showing measurable change. It is what many Latino voters wanted to see, though Obama did it less than five months before the election when it could have been done three years ago. After deportations had reached levels higher than those under George W. Bush, it could take a lot to drive up Latino turnout.

This election is hardly over: The totally unexpected could happen that changes everything. Unless the Obama team can discredit Romney, though, convincing voters that he is a ruthless, uncaring corporate buccaneer, this will be a hard election to win. Probably the only upside for Obama is that the undecided voters appear so sour that they might believe almost anything disparaging said about any politician.”

I hope that’s true but from my POV it seems like they’re all terrified of him, dim, rethugs, LSM alike.

I mean, of course the libtards are going to prop the POS up but there’s also such a hysterical quality to the coverage and politico comments that seems to go beyond just the mad passion to retain power.

labeling pro-Hillary sites at Daily Puma Neo-Conservatives giving readers the impression we support a Republican agenda. When our support for Romney is a tactical strategy for ousting Obama from the White House

========================

That’s a good distinction. But in fact, many posts here DO seem to support the Republican agenda per se. Posts about debt, immigration, anti-contraception etc etc all present the Republican agenda, not Hillary’s.

Dowd’s wit at a public interview last night with fellow New York-based Irish-born journalist Niall O’Dowd.

[snip]

President Obama’s inability to use his skill as a storyteller, so skilfully applied in his memoir, was a key factor in his drop in support, she said. “He’s a bit like Luke Skywalker with the force – he’s got it but he doesn’t seem to know how to use it.”

He was supposed to be the “Democratic Reagan”, but instead of “learning to surf the magic”, he had “put it to one side”, she said. As a consequence, Obama was now engaged in trying to win back the support of so many groups, from “gays, Muslims, Hispanics” to “Catholics and women” who had been “so besotted by him” and had become disenchanted, she said.

The result of the US election would be “close”, she said, even though the campaigns did not have the excitement of 2008.

President Obama’s lead in Ohio has narrowed, according to a new survey.

Obama leads Mitt Romney 47 percent to 44 percent in the Buckeye State, according to the latest poll by the Democratic-leaning firm PPP. But that’s down from a seven point lead that he maintained in the last two PPP surveys of the state.

Obama is clinging to his lead based on his strength with three demographic groups: black voters, young voters and women. Obama leads among African-Americans 93 percent to 6 percent, and he beats Romney among young voters 54 percent to 36 percent. Women support Obama over Romney 52 percent to 41 percent.

President Obama’s reelection campaign has a new tactic: scaring donors.

In a fundraising email that went out to supporters Tuesday under Obama’s name, the campaign raises the specter of being buried in an avalanche of Republican money.

“I will be the first president in modern history to be outspent in his re-election campaign, if things continue as they have so far,” Obama wrote to supporters. “I’m not just talking about the super PACs and anonymous outside groups — I’m talking about the Romney campaign itself. Those outside groups just add even more to the underlying problem.”

“We can be outspent and still win — but we can’t be outspent 10 to 1 and still win,” Obama said.

I have some fatherly advice for the senior dimocratic senators who told Hillary to get out of the race, pushed Obama over the finish line, screamed hail Caesar, and now are whispering in the ears of big media whores omg don’t quote me but . . . can you believe what he has done now. Let me be your exorcist, oh ye who installed him. I will make this simple. It is your only way out, and you do not need Dr. Kervorkian:

1. step I: get on your knees

2. step II: unzip his pants

3. step III: insert mouth around his teenie weenie

3. step IV: blow him until your head explodes

That is your only way out–you traitors.

Fast forward to the movie The Night of The Generals. Omar Shariff is told of a plot to dispose of Hitler. He is unmoved. His source asks him why. Shariff responds those generals were all to happy to support him when the war was going well, but now that we are about to be defeated they are looking to save themselves.

Wolf Blitzer’s The Situation Room, which airs from 4-6 PM ET, was down 42% in 25-54 and 26% in total viewers. His show is expanding to three hours beginning Friday, taking over CNN’s recently cancelled John King U.S.A.

At 7 PM, Erin Burnett OutFront, which debuted in October replacing a then-moving John King U.S.A., was down 45% in 25-54 from last year’s second quarter and down 33% in total viewers.

Piers Morgan Tonight, which replaced Larry King Live in January 2011, was down 33% in the 25-54 and 29% in total viewers.

Pulling double duty, Anderson Cooper took a double hit: Anderson Cooper 360 at 8 PM was down 23% in the 25-54 and 19% in total viewers, and its 10 PM airing was down 48% in the demo and 44% in viewers. The top-rated cable news shows for the second quarter were all FNC shows, with The O’Reilly Factor and Hannity sitting at No. 1 and No. 2.

……………………………………………

Lol Fox sweeping the floor with them. Maybe CNN should look at the bias they have been peddling, ever since you decided to blow Obama 24 hrs a day, your viewership has been in the toilet.

So we are left with Fox or MSNBC ? CNN has tried to be middle of the road, but it seems people want to watch so called “news” programs that only tell them the news they want to hear. I can’t think of one truly objective station when it comes to simply reporting the facts without a left/right agenda.

So much confusion, buyers remorse, and . . . dare I say it, so much panic now in the party of Obama . . . and dare we hope the big media whores who bear the ultimate responsibility for installing him and thereby creating this debacle for the American People.

How do we alleviate their suffering. Yes, I know, their suffering is as nothing compared to what their boy has inflicted on the American people, and their loyalty to the country has been proven sadly lacking. But we must alleviate their suffering, and their worry that at the end of the day, the pitchforks will be turned in their direction.

We could hold their hand, we could pat them on the head, we could say you have been very very naughty, but those are merely palliatives. The best solution would be to hold a comic opera in their honor, and let them do their thing. Monteverdi who invented opera once observed that that which is too ridiculous to be said, can always be sung. So I say let them tell their story in melodious refrains in this delightful ensemble.

CNN getting near collapse with these figures, needs total renewal of programs.
————————–
Lest we forget, on the eve of the 2008 primary, CNN hired trained marketing experts to come up with buzz words to be used against Hillary, which they then fed to their talking heads–words like polarizing, divisive, etc. and many more. They salted their panels with pro Obama people, and conducted phony polls. And at the end of the race, they would cut away from Hillary events and turn move right into Obama with that carnival barker Blitzer. And now they tell us that the reason their business model is failing is because they are neutral? Don’t believe it. They are failing because their top management and their pollster Holland Keating are corrupt. They are failing because they cannot be trusted to give us the truth. That is their problem.

moononpluto
June 26th, 2012 at 4:42 pm
—————————–
I took one look at that photo Moon, and I said to myself he has even got a Julius Caesar haircut. Is that touch of grey real or artificial–to make us think he is actually working (on his golf game). Only his hairdresser knows for sure.

I am SHOCKED! Radical Muslims are supposed to be so warm and cuddly and harmless with their long fuzzy beards and turbans!

“Recently the Taliban forced the closure of 600 schools in two eastern provinces where it has retained control, as part of its campaign to close as many girls’ schools as possible ahead of 2014. Hundreds of schoolgirls were admitted to hospital in a matter of days after drinking poisoned well water. The key target was the province of Takhar, with over 125 girls and three teachers of the Bibi Hajera girls school in Taluqan poisoned in their classrooms with a type of toxic spray. Days later, another 40 girls from the same school suffered similar symptoms. 160 girls were then poisoned in Aahan Dara Girls School in Taluqan.”.

In another incident, pupils from a mixed school in southern Afghanistan had to watch as their teacher and headmaster were executed for refusing to follow the Taliban’s warnings to stop educating girls.

The Taliban denied responsibility for the attacks. However, other Afghans are unconvinced, with a police spokesperson saying “the Afghan people know that the terrorists and the Taliban are doing these things to threaten girls and stop them from going to school.” This most recent string of attacks is a mere prelude to the inevitable full reversal of rights for women and girls come 2014.

Despite claims that the Taliban have modernised since being overthrown, these recent attacks – not to mention persistent stories of women being disfigured, forced suicides and so-called “honour killings” – confirm that the opposite is true.

Think we’ll hear about this from the same LSM who was all over the Sandusky case?

My point is, the selective editing is so over-the-top, so out-of-control, the targeted demonization so blataent (eg. Zimmerman) that I believe everyone is sitting up and taking notice.

Let me clarify why I posted this. It’s not because I’m anti-gay (I couldn’t care less about anyone’s sexual orientation as long as it’s between adults although I DO take exception to in-your-face advocacy)but to point out the continued hypocrisy of LSM.

“Larry Brinkin, the gay activist who led the fight to get San Francisco to recognize domestic partnerships, was arrested for child pornography today. Items seized from his home included computers, videos, tapes, and discs. He had been a long-time employee of the Human Rights Commission, and a central figure in the gay rights movement. The San Francisco board of supervisors actually gave a “Larry Brinkin Week” in February 2010 upon his retirement.”

“Taliban cracking down harder on women.”
******
I was thinking about that while I was mowing the lawn and frying my brain in 100 degree heat. Who were the idiots that thought sending the Afghan Islamists modern weapons to fight the Russians was a good idea??? Having that shit hole of a country run by a stooge for a “godless” communist country was a match made in heaven. The only thing more fitting would have been if we had sent the Stinger missiles packed in lard.

Now back to mowing and working on my idea that Obama is like being infected with Syphilis.

The reason I posted about this is because I have begun to realize the LSM is writing anti-white bias pieces which hit the population they are targeting, mainly white institutions like jocks in PA or erroneously labeled white gun wielders like Zimmerman who was first described as white and then, when the truth was unavoidable, as a white hispanic.

Some LSM airhead wrote a piece today about white men becoming nervous because their ranks are declining.

My point is that since Brinkin is currently a member of a favored group, in BO’s world, will there be any coverage? I doubt it. That fact is almost as sick as the materials Brinkin allegedly had in his possession.

It’s why race-baiting a$$hats like Sharpie of Tawana Browley infamy will probably get tons of media coverage on Thursday when Holder is held in contempt and Sharpie conducts his outraged black three ring circus act demanding justice for Eric.

I have to say that I wonder why white men are not pushing back against the injustices against them.

A new report out Tuesday from the U.S. Census Bureau reveals that American businesses and workers took a beating in 2010.

A few of the lowlights:

Total employment in 2010 dropped 2.5 million workers
The number of U.S. businesses in 2010 was 7.4 million, a plunge of 36,800 from the previous year
Los Angeles County suffered the largest drop in total annual payroll, declining $2 billion from the previous year
Construction took the largest hit of all business sectors, dropping 4.2 percent

The business sectors that made the biggest gains were utilities, healthcare, and social assistance, which rose 1.9 percent from the previous year.

More evidence of big media meltdown by a deranged Hillary hater trying desperately and unsuccessfully to distance herself from her former light of love Obama. This may suggest a big push to get her to join the Obama ticket. But maybe not. (Who gives a shit what they think: WHATEVER they say should be treated as a manipulative lie).

Who were the idiots that thought sending the Afghan Islamists modern weapons to fight the Russians was a good idea???
——————–
I think his name was Tom Hanks. Once upon a time, this Obama loving idiot, pretended to be Charlie Wilson.

Another one, add him to the list. Who’s next, can we have a sweepstake.

. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports:

WASHINGTON—Augusta U.S. Rep. John Barrow will skip the Democratic National Convention in September, adding to a growing list of Democrats distancing themselves from the national party’s major quadrennial get-together.

Barrow spokesman Richard Carbo said Tuesday that Barrow is not going to Charlotte because he is “planning a number of events throughout [the] district during that time.”

Barrow is in his fourth term and faces a difficult re-election test in a district newly redrawn to lean Republican. He moved from Savannah to Augusta this year to remain in the reshaped 12th District.

Barrow is the National Republican Congressional Committee’s top target for 2012 and may be the most endangered House Democrat of the year.

Barack Obama suggested that any decision by the US Supreme Court to overturn his landmark healthcare law would send the country “backwards” and that Americans did not want to “re-fight” the battle over healthcare.

……………………………………

er no, the people want it gone, it was’nt perfect before but it was better than the crap you put forward. Seriously you wanna fight over it, i think you better remember the last fight over it in 2010 and what happened to you in the elections.

Funny that 18 Million voters were not needed by the DNC, if they think we are going to stay home and not vote, they are delusional.

We will vote, and we will vote to get these crooks out of our WhiteHouse and out of our Congress.F
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
We told them but they wouldn’t listen.
Now they want us back.I say Donna that train has left the station. 😯

ooo, this is so darn sad, last chance to have dinner with BO and MO if we don’t send him money.

—

I’m sad to say this is probably the last dinner with supporters that Barack and I will be able to host together before the election.

Today’s the last day you can chip in to be automatically entered for the chance to join us — and I hope you will. You can donate all the way up to midnight tonight, when the campaign will randomly select the winners:

ROFLMAO……….This is published in the Washington Monthly (which I had never heard of before this was linked on my FB community):

Washington Monthly / ByPaul Glastris and Ryan Cooper and Siyu Hu

310 COMMENTS

Top 50 Things Accomplished by President Barack Obama

A look back at Obama’s first term.

April 4, 2012 |

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1. Passed Health Care Reform: After five presidents over a century failed to create universal health insurance, signed the Affordable Care Act (2010). It will cover 32 million uninsured Americans beginning in 2014 and mandates a suite of experimental measures to cut health care cost growth, the number one cause of America’s long-term fiscal problems.

2. Passed the Stimulus: Signed $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009 to spur economic growth amid greatest recession since the Great Depression. Weeks after stimulus went into effect, unemployment claims began to subside. Twelve months later, the private sector began producing more jobs than it was losing, and it has continued to do so for twenty-three straight months, creating a total of nearly 3.7 million new private-sector jobs.

3. Passed Wall Street Reform: Signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (2010) to re-regulate the financial sector after its practices caused the Great Recession. The new law tightens capital requirements on large banks and other financial institutions, requires derivatives to be sold on clearinghouses and exchanges, mandates that large banks provide “living wills” to avoid chaotic bankruptcies, limits their ability to trade with customers’ money for their own profit, and creates the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (now headed by Richard Cordray) to crack down on abusive lending products and companies.

4. Ended the War in Iraq: Ordered all U.S. military forces out of the country. Last troops left on December 18, 2011.

5. Began Drawdown of War in Afghanistan: From a peak of 101,000 troops in June 2011, U.S. forces are now down to 91,000, with 23,000 slated to leave by the end of summer 2012. According to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, the combat mission there will be over by next year.

6. Eliminated Osama bin laden: In 2011, ordered special forces raid of secret compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in which the terrorist leader was killed and a trove of al-Qaeda documents was discovered.

7. Turned Around U.S. Auto Industry: In 2009, injected $62 billion in federal money (on top of $13.4 billion in loans from the Bush administration) into ailing GM and Chrysler in return for equity stakes and agreements for massive restructuring. Since bottoming out in 2009, the auto industry has added more than 100,000 jobs. In 2011, the Big Three automakers all gained market share for the first time in two decades. The government expects to lose $16 billion of its investment, less if the price of the GM stock it still owns increases.

8. Recapitalized Banks: In the midst of financial crisis, approved controversial Treasury Department plan to lure private capital into the country’s largest banks via “stress tests” of their balance sheets and a public-private fund to buy their “toxic” assets. Got banks back on their feet at essentially zero cost to the government.

9. Repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”: Ended 1990s-era restriction and formalized new policy allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military for the first time.

10. Toppled Moammar Gaddafi: In March 2011, joined a coalition of European and Arab governments in military action, including air power and naval blockade, against Gaddafi regime to defend Libyan civilians and support rebel troops. Gaddafi’s forty-two-year rule ended when the dictator was overthrown and killed by rebels on October 20, 2011. No American lives were lost.

11. Told Mubarak to Go: On February 1, 2011, publicly called on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to accept reform or step down, thus weakening the dictator’s position and putting America on the right side of the Arab Spring. Mubarak ended thirty-year rule when overthrown on February 11.

12. Reversed Bush Torture Policies: Two days after taking office, nullified Bush-era rulings that had allowed detainees in U.S. custody to undergo certain “enhanced” interrogation techniques considered inhumane under the Geneva Conventions. Also released the secret Bush legal rulings supporting the use of these techniques.

13. Improved America’s Image Abroad: With new policies, diplomacy, and rhetoric, reversed a sharp decline in world opinion toward the U.S. (and the corresponding loss of “soft power”) during the Bush years. From 2008 to 2011, favorable opinion toward the United States rose in ten of fifteen countries surveyed by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, with an average increase of 26 percent.

14. Kicked Banks Out of Federal Student Loan Program, Expanded Pell Grant Spending: As part of the 2010 health care reform bill, signed measure ending the wasteful decades-old practice of subsidizing banks to provide college loans. Starting July 2010 all students began getting their federal student loans directly from the federal government. Treasury will save $67 billion over ten years, $36 billion of which will go to expanding Pell Grants to lower-income students.

15. Created Race to the Top: With funds from stimulus, started $4.35 billion program of competitive grants to encourage and reward states for education reform.

16. Boosted Fuel Efficiency Standards: Released new fuel efficiency standards in 2011 that will nearly double the fuel economy for cars and trucks by 2025.

17. Coordinated International Response to Financial Crisis: To keep world economy out of recession in 2009 and 2010, helped secure from G-20 nations more than $500 billion for the IMF to provide lines of credit and other support to emerging market countries, which kept them liquid and avoided crises with their currencies.

18. Passed Mini Stimuli: To help families hurt by the recession and spur the economy as stimulus spending declined, signed series of measures (July 22, 2010; December 17, 2010; December 23, 2011) to extend unemployment insurance and cut payroll taxes.

19. Began Asia “Pivot”: In 2011, reoriented American military and diplomatic priorities and focus from the Middle East and Europe to the Asian-Pacific region. Executed multipronged strategy of positively engaging China while reasserting U.S. leadership in the region by increasing American military presence and crafting new commercial, diplomatic, and military alliances with neighboring countries made uncomfortable by recent Chinese behavior.

20. Increased Support for Veterans: With so many soldiers coming home from Iraq and Iran with serious physical and mental health problems, yet facing long waits for services, increased 2010 Department of Veterans Affairs budget by 16 percent and 2011 budget by 10 percent. Also signed new GI bill offering $78 billion in tuition assistance over a decade, and provided multiple tax credits to encourage businesses to hire veterans.

21. Tightened Sanctions on Iran: In effort to deter Iran’s nuclear program, signed Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act (2010) to punish firms and individuals who aid Iran’s petroleum sector. In late 2011 and early 2012, coordinated with other major Western powers to impose sanctions aimed at Iran’s banks and with Japan, South Korea, and China to shift their oil purchases away from Iran.

22. Created Conditions to Begin Closing Dirtiest Power Plants: New EPA restrictions on mercury and toxic pollution, issued in December 2011, likely to lead to the closing of between sixty-eight and 231 of the nation’s oldest and dirtiest coal-fired power plants. Estimated cost to utilities: at least $11 billion by 2016. Estimated health benefits: $59 billion to $140 billion. Will also significantly reduce carbon emissions and, with other regulations, comprises what’s been called Obama’s “stealth climate policy.”

24. Eliminated Catch-22 in Pay Equality Laws: Signed Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009, giving women who are paid less than men for the same work the right to sue their employers after they find out about the discrimination, even if that discrimination happened years ago. Under previous law, as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., the statute of limitations on such suits ran out 180 days after the alleged discrimination occurred, even if the victims never knew about it.

25. Protected Two Liberal Seats on the U.S. Supreme Court: Nominated and obtained confirmation for Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic and third woman to serve, in 2009; and Elena Kagan, the fourth woman to serve, in 2010. They replaced David Souter and John Paul Stevens, respectively.

26. Improved Food Safety System: In 2011, signed FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, which boosts the Food and Drug Administration’s budget by $1.4 billion and expands its regulatory responsibilities to include increasing number of food inspections, issuing direct food recalls, and reviewing the current food safety practices of countries importing products into America.

27. Achieved New START Treaty: Signed with Russia (2010) and won ratification in Congress (2011) of treaty that limits each country to 1,550 strategic warheads (down from 2,200) and 700 launchers (down from more than 1,400), and reestablished and strengthened a monitoring and transparency program that had lapsed in 2009, through which each country can monitor the other.

28. Expanded National Service: Signed Serve America Act in 2009, which authorized a tripling of the size of AmeriCorps. Program grew 13 percent to 85,000 members across the country by 2012, when new House GOP majority refused to appropriate more funds for further expansion.

29. Expanded Wilderness and Watershed Protection: Signed Omnibus Public Lands Management Act (2009), which designated more than 2 million acres as wilderness, created thousands of miles of recreational and historic trails, and protected more than 1,000 miles of rivers.

30. Gave the FDA Power to Regulate Tobacco: Signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (2009). Nine years in the making and long resisted by the tobacco industry, the law mandates that tobacco manufacturers disclose all ingredients, obtain FDA approval for new tobacco products, and expand the size and prominence of cigarette warning labels, and bans the sale of misleadingly labeled “light” cigarette brands and tobacco sponsorship of entertainment events.

31. Pushed Federal Agencies to Be Green Leaders: Issued executive order in 2009 requiring all federal agencies to make plans to soften their environmental impacts by 2020. Goals include 30 percent reduction in fleet gasoline use, 26 percent boost in water efficiency, and sustainability requirements for 95 percent of all federal contracts. Because federal government is the country’s single biggest purchaser of goods and services, likely to have ripple effects throughout the economy for years to come.

33. Trimmed and Reoriented Missile Defense: Cut the Reagan-era “Star Wars” missile defense budget, saving $1.4 billion in 2010, and canceled plans to station antiballistic missile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic in favor of sea-based defense plan focused on Iran and North Korea.

34. Began Post-Post-9/11 Military Builddown: After winning agreement from congressional Republicans and Democrats in summer 2011 budget deal to reduce projected defense spending by $450 billion, proposed new DoD budget this year with cuts of that size and a new national defense strategy that would shrink ground forces from 570,000 to 490,000 over the next ten years while increasing programs in intelligence gathering and cyberwarfare.

35. Let Space Shuttle Die and Killed Planned Moon Mission: Allowed the expensive ($1 billion per launch), badly designed, dangerous shuttle program to make its final launch on July 8, 2011. Cut off funding for even more bloated and problem-plagued Bush-era Constellation program to build moon base in favor of support for private-sector low-earth orbit ventures, research on new rocket technologies for long-distance manned flight missions, and unmanned space exploration, including the largest interplanetary rover ever launched, which will investigate Mars’s potential to support life.

36. Invested Heavily in Renewable Technology: As part of the 2009 stimulus, invested $90 billion, more than any previous administration, in research on smart grids, energy efficiency, electric cars, renewable electricity generation, cleaner coal, and biofuels.

37. Crafting Next-Generation School Tests: Devoted $330 million in stimulus money to pay two consortia of states and universities to create competing versions of new K-12 student performance tests based on latest psychometric research. New tests could transform the learning environment in vast majority of public school classrooms beginning in 2014.

38. Cracked Down on Bad For-Profit Colleges: In effort to fight predatory practices of some for-profit colleges, Department of Education issued “gainful employment” regulations in 2011 cutting off commercially focused schools from federal student aid funding if more than 35 percent of former students aren’t paying off their loans and/or if the average former student spends more than 12 percent of his or her total earnings servicing student loans.

39. Improved School Nutrition: In coordination with Michelle Obama, signed Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act in 2010 mandating $4.5 billion spending boost and higher nutritional and health standards for school lunches. New rules based on the law, released in January, double the amount of fruits and vegetables and require only whole grains in food served to students.

40. Expanded Hate Crimes Protections: Signed Hate Crimes Prevention Act (2009), which expands existing hate crime protections to include crimes based on a victim’s sexual orientation, gender, or disability, in addition to race, color, religion, or national origin.

41. Avoided Scandal: As of November 2011, served longer than any president in decades without a scandal, as measured by the appearance of the word “scandal” (or lack thereof) on the front page of the Washington Post.

42. Brokered Agreement for Speedy Compensation to Victims of Gulf Oil Spill: Though lacking statutory power to compel British Petroleum to act, used moral authority of his office to convince oil company to agree in 2010 to a $20 billion fund to compensate victims of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico; $6.5 billion already paid out without lawsuits. By comparison, it took nearly two decades for plaintiffs in the Exxon Valdez Alaska oil spill case to receive $1.3 billion.

43. Created Recovery.gov: Web site run by independent board of inspectors general looking for fraud and abuse in stimulus spending, provides public with detailed information on every contract funded by $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Thanks partly to this transparency, board has uncovered very little fraud, and Web site has become national model: “The stimulus has done more to promote transparency at almost all levels of government than any piece of legislation in recent memory,” reports Governing magazine.

45. Expanded Health Coverage for Children: Signed 2009 Children’s Health Insurance Authorization Act, which allows the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to cover health care for 4 million more children, paid for by a tax increase on tobacco products.

46. Recognized the Dangers of Carbon Dioxide: In 2009, EPA declared carbon dioxide a pollutant, allowing the agency to regulate its production.

48. Provided Payment to Wronged Minority Farmers: In 2009, signed Claims Resolution Act, which provided $4.6 billion in funding for a legal settlement with black and Native American farmers who the government cheated out of loans and natural resource royalties in years past.

49. Helped South Sudan Declare Independence: Helped South Sudan Declare Independence: Appointed two envoys to Sudan and personally attended a special UN meeting on the area. Through U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice, helped negotiate a peaceful split in 2011.

50. Killed the F-22: In 2009, ended further purchases of Lockheed Martin single-seat, twin-engine, fighter aircraft, which cost $358 million apiece. Though the military had 187 built, the plane has never flown a single combat mission. Eliminating it saved $4 billion.

Paul Glastris, Ryan Cooper, and Siyu Hu collaborated on this article. Glastris is the editor in chief of the Washington Monthly. Cooper and Hu are interns at the magazine.

The Democratic Party’s resistance to holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress is crumbling.

Utah Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson said Tuesday he plans to vote in favor of holding Holder in contempt over his refusal to comply with a subpoena into the Operation Fast and Furious scandal.

“It just compounds the tragedy when both sides play politics instead of releasing the facts. The Terry family, the public and Congress deserve answers,” Matheson said in remarks first reported by the Salt Lake Tribune in his home state. “Sadly, it seems that it will take holding the attorney general in contempt to communicate that evasiveness is unacceptable.”

To make matters worse for Holder, President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party, more Democrats are expected to join Matheson in holding Holder in contempt. House Minority Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer, the House Democrats’ chief vote-counter, isn’t even sure how many Democrats will break ranks. According to the Associated Press — which framed the Democratic defections as a result of the NRA’s decision to score the vote — Hoyer wouldn’t say how many Democrats he expected to vote in favor of Holder in contempt, but confirmed he expects some, like Matheson, to abandon party lines.

Shadowfax
June 26th, 2012 at 2:36 pm
Maybe they can hold the convention on the WhiteHouse lawn to save money, Joe can blow bubbles and serve beer while the American public can watch though the bars of the WH fence.

He isn’t going to win the election anyway, so why waste the money?
***********************************************

how about just asking someone to give up their paid wedding so O can take their venue for the Dem convention…it doesn’t even have to be that big of a venue with all the dems dropping out and having better things to do with their time…

From ACE,I thought the same thing about Romney’s comments, he should have waited with that 3 1/2 years of absolutely nothing!

******

Only if you assume he’s (fraud) gotten a heads-up can you make the next assumption, that he’s laying down a campaign theme.

Barack Obama suggested that any decision by the US Supreme Court to overturn his landmark healthcare law would send the country “backwards” and that Americans did not want to “re-fight” the battle over healthcare.
It was the first sign that beyond the White House’s staunch defence of the Affordable Care Act Mr Obama is prepared to use the law as a rallying cry on the campaign trail. It is a risky strategy: about half the country remains opposed to the legislation, although most voters like the consumer protections that are guaranteed under the law.

…

In his comments, Mr Obama did not make any explicit references to the court, although he has said in the past that it would be “unprecedented” for the ACA to be overturned.

“The American people fight for what’s right. And the American people understand that we’re not going to make progress by going backwards. We need to go forward,” he said.

Given that the opinion was written a month ago (or so) and is only being withheld for its big Release Date on Thursday, it seems it’s a bit late to be “warning” the Court on this.

Since he’s not warning the Court, what is he doing?

Announcing a campaign theme?

Romney also seems to be peering into the near-future.

“As you know, the Supreme Court is gonna be dealing with whether or not Obamacare’s constitutional,” said Romney, previewing the court’s decision that is expected to be announced on Thursday.
“If it’s not, if Obamacare is not deemed constitutional, then the first three and a half years of this president’s term will have been wasted on something that has not helped the American people,” said Romney, offering his most scathing review to date of Obama’s tenure should the plan be struck down.

“If it’s not,” Romney went on, “If it is deemed to stand, then I’ll tell you one thing. Then we’ll have to have a president, and I’m that one, that’s gonna get rid of Obamacare.”

Allah thinks he should have waited until he knew the decision’s holding — otherwise, if ObamaCare is upheld, maybe he’s saying Obama’s first term wasn’t a waste.But I’m wondering. Seriously, I know the Court prides itself on secrecy and rectitude, but hasn’t this leaked yet?

If no one in the Court has leaked this, then grab up their personnel and start training them for the CIA.

“Rubio is wrong, Americans will accept a single payer program, we have one now, it’s called Medicare….”
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We also have a “true” socialized medical system; The Veterans Admin. health care system costing about $53 billion a year and this is well received and accepted.

Agree Gonzotx. By the way, O is down here again for a 40k a plate fundraiser and concert tonight with Spanish crooner Marc Anthony. He is trying , with some success, to tighten his hold on the Hispanic vote.

apparently Claire Bear is no longer listening to her kids on who to support. So MO voters are now supposed to believe this woman will listen to her constituents when she refused to her to those same constituents when “health”care was being rammed down America’s throats. So, she didn’t listen to her consitutents in the past why would she listen to them should she be re-elected??

Medicare doesn’t kick in until age 65. Veterans Care is, obviously, restricted to veteran coverage. Like I said, I posted the clip because Rubio, IMHO, comported himself well and came across as very likable, even to Jon Stewart. Not EVERYTHING posted is strictly about political views. And, to repeat, I thought Rubio came off well. I said nothing about whether or not I, personally, agreed with all of his views so why turn it into an argument?

Anti-sematism is in the Muslim BrotherHood’s DNA, also known hilariously as the “Freedom and Justice” party. Starts at about 3:00. The MB man cannot separate from Israel and jews, he cannot even stand being on the same show. What a bunch of bigots.

Oh goody, Holder give documents concerning the terrorist ties of the Holy Land Foundation to CAIR, but won’t give them to Congress. I wonder who Holder thinks he’s working for? CAIR or the American people??

No one is arguing, we just listened and had an opinion about single payer health care which most of us support, aka Hillary. I like a lot of things about Rubio, but I don’t like his stance on health insurance and immigration. I also don’t like that he has acquired the “perpetual smile” we see on politicians. That actually worries me…a lot.

Tim,

I don’t like part of that add about pre conditions not being insured. If you ever tried to get private insurance and are over 40, the insurance industry wants you to just die. I have hypothyroidism, a very treatable, common problem, drug cost like 7 dollars a month, they wouldn’t insure me. You just don’t end up in the hospital for hypothyroidism. It costs basically nothing, LOL.It changed my life, I had to go back to a permanent job instead of working prn, as needed, flexible schedule, nice. I worked generally the same or more hours, only I picked them, but alas, no coverage. Big brother owns me now. Actually, the way the economy is, it all worked out for the best and I am thankful I have a good job that pays well. I know many don’t.

gontozo, of course people want pre-conditions to be insured, but just like with car insurance, where unsafe drivers are charged more, and that makes sense for car insurance. But then the question comes, how to make health insurance work for people who have pre-conditions?

So people who are ill because 1) they haven’t been taking care of themselves cumulatively their lives & so its gotten to that point of bad health or 2) even if the have been taking care of themselves, they just unfortunately were hit will bad bout of illness, in both cases, that should not preclude people from being able to get health insurance, but when people have illness, the insurance companies charge more, sometimes so much more that it financially wipes out a family’s finances or they don’t get it and wait until they are really sick and then go to the emergency room, which at that point where costs are massive and the patient may not be able to be helped if they had gotten help prior to that point.

So, how to solve this? More competition, let health insurance companies compete with each other, they have a nice little racket where the companies are within states and no need to compete with other companies to lower insurance rates with better quality. Just like bad drivers, they can still get car insurance, their rates are still higher compared to safe drivers, but since there is competition the bad driver can still get afforadable good car insurance and because of competition from many varying companies, the rates even for bad drivers is lower than it would have been if there was just a monopoly of car insurance companies.

And there are so many other ways to make sure the rates come down, and quality and access goes up, but this one-size fits all crap of a law isn’t it. This bill revolves around govt control not consumer control, not patient control. The govt does play some part, but not the way they designed it, where the govt doesn’t play a part, it controls pretty much all it.

I’m glad you’re doing better, I have heard of hypothroidism (is it because an iodine deficency?), very glad to hear you’re doing better!!

Tim, hypothyroidism is chronic and most old ladies like me have it. The point is the insurance companies only want to insure young healthy people, period. Competition hasn’t made too much of a dent in any kind of insurance IMHO. I could have paid 3000 a month for my husband and I, but really?

“Competition hasn’t made too much of a dent in any kind of insurance IMHO”

well, I know when I was shopping for health insurance for my former business I remember I could not find that many choices, my 2 cents, we really don’t have real actual competition, its horrible because I do believe if there was competition, like real competition, there would be improvement. I do agree with you, if you have any pre-condition, no matter how minor, its frightening how the rates skrocket. I tried to get my former employees some level of very basic health insurance, I still remember how difficult it was for smaller sized business to get any good rates or any good insurance products.

Obot John Hardwood shills for his Messaih… the internal of the poll, registered not likely voters, also, they listed Dems as +8 in the polling sample over independents. Considering there are more independents now than dems, I wonder how these people think they can lie and people still believe them.

So disagree that the VA ‘system’ is well accepted; is there a choice for veterans? The VA does a superbly horrendous job in the care and treatment, just ask almost any veteran. My son, now a chair user, is going downhill fast under VA care and treatment. I won’t get started with all the horrors I know of other real veterans who are under VA MIStreatment. One of the biggest problems is that the doctors for the most part do not speak English; they change very frequently; they seem to start from square one when a new doctor is on a person’s case. Walter Reed Hospital and its demise are a good example of how veterans are treated by the government. So many are coming home from these current wars with missing limbs and PTSD.It is almost like HellCare; push granny over a cliff and the veterans, too.

“So many are coming home from these current wars with missing limbs and PTSD.It is almost like HellCare; push granny over a cliff and the veterans, too.”
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I don’t disagree with the general direction of your observations. I have worked in four VA over about 40 years (English is my native language) and care is highly variable and so are the doctors. (I must say, however, that some of the very worst patient care that I have seen over the years has been in “private” hospitals). IMO, the VA is going to have to spend their resources on service related patient care.

Americans will accept a single payer program, we have one now, it’s called Medicare….”
********
We also have a “true” socialized medical system; The Veterans Admin. health care system costing about $53 billion a year and this is well received and accepted.

======================

I started to say that any patient who has only known one system will find the flaws in that system adn think the grass must be greener somewhere else. But in various forums I see people who have only known the UK or Canadian or Australian or NZ (or German or French?) health care systems do praise their own.

Wow. Rubio really is impressive. I love his comments about how there have been no real votes of substance in the year and a half that he’s been there and that the votes that have been taken are primarily for talking points on the Sunday talk show circuit and the upcoming election.

Basil99 I am glad that you posted that Daily Show video of Marco Rubio. While I don’t agree with his immigration stance I think he did more than an excellent job against Jon Stewart. He is very impressive, quick on his facts, and was completely calm and non-plussed during the whole exchange with Stewart. Rubio never let him get the best of him. Even Stewart had to admit “Now I know why they like you so much.” He would make a good VP candidate for Mr. Vanilla Romney.

Mrs Smith (6/26 at 9:17 am): “Neo-conservative… giving readers the impression we support a Republican agenda. When our support for Romney is a tactical strategy for ousting Obama …”
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BTW, ‘tactical strategy’ is oxymoronic.

For my part, my support for Romney is not a tactic. I think he would be a good president, and just the kind of president we need now, because he is not a neo-conservative but a centrist, and also because he has qualifying experience, both politically and as an executive in business and government. I suppose he stands for the Republican agenda of 2012 and, if that is the case, then I support the Republican agenda – socialist that I am.

If the R nominee were Huckabee, Santorum, Gingrich, etc., then I would be closer to the situation of 2008 when I had serious misgivings about the R nominee; so you could then say that my support/vote was a tactic to prevent O from winning. But this year, it is not.

BASIL99: “The first responsibility of any U.S. public official is to take care of the American people. Personally, I don’t give a rat’s a$$ what other countries think of us.”
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On a purely domestic level, you are right of course. We live our lives the way we want and the hell with any foreigners who would have us live differently.

You probably realize, though, that very few foreigners spend much time thinking about us, criticizing us, admiring us, trying to be like us or different from us, or trying to find ways to change us. Most foreigners have your attitude: We’ll live the way we want and don’t give a rat’s ass what the U.S. thinks of us.

Dubya didn’t understand that about furriners. He thought we naturally led the world and everybody wanted to be like us, so under the terms of American Exceptionalism he could send our military around the globe to liberate people and impose our freedum ‘n’ demokratie ‘n’ kapitalism on them. LBJ tried that before him, with even less success.

One thing that can be said in Obama’s favor is that, with Hillary’s help, he has upended this definition of American Exceptionalism, though he didn’t replace it with anything more recognizable.

We are not the center of the world. Those of us who think so, are subject to what the French call ‘nombrilisme’, which translates literally as ‘bellybutton-ism’, an obsession with one’s own bellybutton.

As for your first assertion, which I also agree with, that “the first responsibility of any US official is to take care of the American people,” please consider how this applies to Hillary Clinton. Do you think HRC, as Secretary of State and therefore a US public official, would say she doesn’t give a rat’s ass what other countries think of us? Would such nombrilism serve our country’s best interests abroad?

I think you know that the answer to that question is ‘No’. We can, but in our best interest we should not, turn our backs on the world.

And indeed you do not:

BASIL99: June 26th, 2012 at 5:00 pm: “Taliban cracking down harder on women.

I am SHOCKED! Radical Muslims are supposed to be so warm and cuddly and harmless with their long fuzzy beards and turbans!
*****

So, let me get this straight: You don’t give a rat’s ass what the rest of the world thinks about us, but you expect the Taliban to be concerned that you are shocked about girl’s non-education or how non-cuddly radicals are? We’ve already sent troops and plenty of civilians to Afghanistan, what else do you want to do about people who don’t give a rat’s ass about us?

Yes, and notice that he says ‘confidence’ and stability are essential to growth, as I was saying a few weeks ago. A president can do this, and I think Romney will.

He also takes a Romney-like stance on regulations – they’re needed but they have to be the right regulations, and up to date. He speaks of tax reform, regulatory reform. None of this De-Regulation Theology so typical of the Republican agenda.

I would also like to point out that Stewart himself shines on that show. He debates very well with Rubio, showing him “there is another way to growth.” The debate is lively and educational.

Mrs Smith (6/26 at 9:17 am): “Neo-conservative… giving readers the impression we support a Republican agenda. When our support for Romney is a tactical strategy for ousting Obama …”
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BTW, ‘tactical strategy’ is oxymoronic.

For my part, my support for Romney is not a tactic.
___________________

How, in your mind, is a ‘tactical strategy’ an incongruous statement? ABO is what it’s all about. Which amounts to a ‘tactical strategy’ for voting out the incumbent if a primary challenger from his own party never materializes for consideration.
You’re just being silly, jeswey. Anyhow, Romney governed in the state next door to me. MA residents didn’t consider him St. Willard when he imposed his health care legislation on them intending to broaden the coverage later on for covering illegals at taxpayer expense. Romney is the lesser of two evils afaic.

The Supreme Court’s unusual moment in the spotlight
By Robert Barnes, Published: June 26
Calculating who will write the final decision of the Supreme Court’s term is a game that usually interests only a small band of lawyers, professors, reporters and politicos who obsess over the justices’ every footnote. But this year, the likelihood that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. is preparing the court’s judgment on President Obama’s health-care overhaul is worthy of headlines and a whirl of Internet spin. Roberts’s questions at oral arguments are being consulted, his decisions in past cases are being reviewed, and the analysis is underway about whether he is preparing a life preserver or a stake for the Affordable Care Act….http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/speculation-grows-that-roberts-will-write-majority-opinion-in-health-care-case/2012/06/26/gJQAShqe4V_print.html

You must have a lot of time on your hands to prowl through several days worth of my comments. cheery pick a few, take them out of context from the flow of the discussion and then try to use them to show inconsistencies.

My stance on Radical Islam and the treatment of women has not changed in years. Those who are familiar with my views understand, I believe, that I posted the article about ongoing horrors aimed at women in radical Islamic countries as an ongoing reality check to bloggers at this site who insist such groups are harmless.

They are not.

And since I am most concerned about what happens in MY country, the US, I don’t want to see such groups welcomed, accepted or infiltrate here.

I don’t want to see the implementation of sharia law, the acceptance and/or adoption of the burqua, the associated classification of women as property.

I don’t know if you’re an American, if you live here, if you grew up here and what your beef is.

Is it that you’re a “Citizen of theWorld” type and thereby think yourself superior?

Honestly, about that, too, I don’t give a rats a$$.

My main concern is the treatment of women in general and the thought such vile treatment could permeate to the U.S.

Nowhere did I advocate for an American stance toward Afghanistan so I don’t know what you are talking about.

FYI, I also don’t want the Mexican cartels to spill into the southwest with carte blanche as is happening under the current administration.

In both cases I don’t think the government is acting to protect and defend U.S. citizens.

“The Amateur” was sent to my kindle when it first came out- was saving the book for reading on the 5+hr trip to Texas. Wbb mentioned on the blog, he was reading it as well. He called yesterday letting me know his puter is in the shop and wanted me to let everyone know he would be offline for a few days until the problem is solved. Anyway, I was anxious for a bit of a preview of his like or dislike of the book. I had only read the first 10-15 pgs and found the author’s conversational style a fun an easy read. To my surprise, he had done the same thing. However, there was enough meat on the bone for a lively discussion from the information reading just the preface and the introduction. Apparently, it was Bill Clinton’s phrasing [he’s] ‘just an amateur’ that led Mr, Klein to use it as the book title. If the rest of the book is as good as the preface and intro, I highly recommend it for reading.. the only change I would make would be reading it on a private beach somewhere rather than sardined in a pepsi can for the trip. And with my luck, having a jeswezy sitting next to me peppering me with misstated ‘oxymoron’ examples for the duration. 🙂

serves you right…………lost by 44% and demands a recount, lol, hilarious.

New York City councilman Charles Barron, who has called Israel a “terrorist state,” was clobbered in his bid for a Congressional seat but blamed the media and demanded a recount.

Barron lost out to state Assemblyman Hakeen Jeffries in the race to succeed retiring 24-year incumbent Congressman Edolphus Towns. The redrawn district is highly Democratic and Jeffries can expect to coast to a victory in the November elections against the Republican party nominee.

Jeffries won the primaries Tuesday night by a whopping 72-28 percent margin. Democratic party leaders went all out to prevent an upset victory by Barron, which would have seriously embarrassed the party and President Barack Obama because of the ex-Black Panther’s stated hostility towards Jews and Israel.

His severe loss did nothing to gag his venom. He denounced the media as “really lowlife scum” and he refused to concede defeat.

“At the risk of sounding like a sore loser, honesty compels me to say there will be no congratulatory statement to the opposition tonight, only because of the way the campaign was run,” Barron was quoted as saying by the New York Daily News.

“We had them scared from the very beginning,” Barron claimed. “There’s something bigger than politics and that’s a movement. A movement of the people. We have that here tonight. When we launched this campaign, we knew we were going up against….”

Tax cheats were given $1.4 billion in government-backed mortgage loans under President Obama’s economic stimulus, and the government doled out at least an additional $27 million in tax credits to delinquents who took the first-time-homebuyer tax break, according to a government audit released Tuesday.

Under government rules, delinquent taxpayers are supposed to be ineligible for the mortgage insurance program unless they have reached a repayment agreement with the Internal Revenue Service. But the Federal Housing Administration didn’t have the right controls to weed out bad applications, said the Government Accountability Office, Congress‘ chief investigative arm.

That meant FHA insured $1.4 billion in mortgages for 6,327 borrowers who collectively owed $77.6 million in unpaid taxes, or an average of more than $12,000 each.

The auditors said that as a category, the tax cheats had foreclosure rates up to three times as high as other borrowers, which meant the delinquent taxpayers exposed the government to even greater risks.

“In the name of ‘stimulus,’ the federal government gave mortgage insurance to thousands of people we knew were tax cheats and had a bad track record paying their debts,” said Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, who joined a bipartisan group of other lawmakers to request the investigation. “The federal government needlessly put taxpayers on the line to help tax cheats buy homes. Congress needs to ensure that tax cheats are no longer allowed to take advantage of FHA programs.”

In addition to the mortgages, the auditors found that more than half of the tax-delinquent borrowers claimed the first-time-homebuyers’ credit, worth up to $8,000.

GAO said there is no prohibition against someone claiming the credit, even though they still have unpaid tax bills. The credit is refundable, meaning taxpayers can get a check back from the government if the benefit exceeds their liability. IRS rules generally call for the agency to subtract any unpaid taxes from the refund, but in three of the nine cases that GAO analyzed in depth, it said the taxpayers had declared bankruptcy, meaning the IRS was prevented from docking the refunds.

The report was the GAO’s second study looking at tax cheats and the stimulus.

In the first report, GAO said thousands of contracts and grants were paid out under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to those with unpaid tax bills.

Mr. Obama pushed the $831 billion economic stimulus in early 2009 as a means of bolstering the faltering economy, and promised to use strict controls to cut fraud and abuse. At its peak in mid-2010, it was responsible for as many as 3.6 million jobs, but could have funded as few as 700,000, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Part of the Recovery Act was aimed at shoring up the housing market, which included the first-time-homebuyer tax credit and the mortgage assistance, which let the FHA insure loans at a higher rate in high-cost housing markets.

About 1.7 million individuals claimed the tax credit, while FHA insured more than $20 billion in mortgages for 87,000 homeowners, thanks to the Recovery Act provisions.

“FYI, I also don’t want the Mexican cartels to spill into the southwest with carte blanche as is happening under the current administration.”
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Worse than that- Mexican Cartels are infiltrating as far North as Wyoming intimidating Native American Indians into assisting them growing exotic marijuana plants from Afghanistan seed on theirs and government land. Mexican Cartel activity in the US is more pervasive than we realized.

Re Marxism/Communism here – saw this at WND by Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking Soviet-bloc official ever to defect to the West. Excerpts:

“Hiding the ugly face of Marxism behind a smiling mask has become a Marxist science,…

WND: Many Americans would roll their eyes at the phrase “Marxism in America,” even though with every passing year we are becoming more and more Marxist. Why are so many Americans so blind?

Pacepa: They are not blind. They just do not really know what Marxism is.

WND: What will it take for Americans to wake up?

Pacepa: A “Campaign of Truth” like the one unleashed by President Harry Truman in 1950. I still keep the declassified version of his NSC 68/1950 on my desk. That 58-page document put together by the U.S. National Security Council set forth the strategy of exposing and containing Marxism and Soviet Communism.

“The issues that face us are momentous,” the document stated, “involving the fulfillment or destruction not only of this Republic but of civilization itself.” Truman reasoned that Marxism and Soviet Communism were the mortal enemies of freedom and religion – of all religions – and he believed their expansion could be stopped only “through a concerted effort” that would place the superiority and strength of what he called “truth and freedom” before the peoples of the world.

Marxism is now threatening our country again. Let’s unleash another Truman-style campaign of truth. Let’s remind the leaders of the Democratic Party that Truman was a Democrat. Let also remind them that John F. Kennedy, another Democrat, was ready to start a nuclear war in order to protect the United States from the danger of Marxism. And let’s remind America that the peace and freedom of the world depend on the economic power of United States and the united resolve of its public opinion, as was always the case.

If our capitalist economy and national unity go, so will our prosperity, our security and the peace of the world.”

Mrs Smith: “tactical strategy” is oxymoronic because tactics and strategy are different levels of action that are often contradictory. For instance, Romney’s strategy is to stay on message and talk jobs and economy all the time regardless of the distractions that Obama throws his way. But on a tactical level, Romney’s superpac or campaign surrogates provide the blowback to those distractions, or should do so, and that is a necessary tactic that is not consistent with the strategy. There are plenty of military examples too – an army is sent somewhere to establish peace, the strategy, but to establish the peace they have to do some fighting and killing, which is tactical.

Words mean things. I don’t think it’s ‘silly’ to draw a distinction between tactics and strategy. What’s silly is blurring the distinction, using two contradictory words where one would suffice. To you, ABO is the strategy. OK, I get it. I hope you were not so upset about my little sentence beginning ‘BTW…’ that you didn’t read the rest of the post: for me, supporting Romney is neither a strategy nor a tactic.

It was a headline on my homepage, so I could not miss it. I have stayed away from posting polls the last months, but this one is unsettling. truthfully, with the economy still tanking and unemployment still over 8%, Mitt should be 10 points up!!! Why O remains so popular is a testament to big media and the ignorance of a lot of people.

Judging by your very many posts and my very few posts, it is unreasonable to come to this conclusion. In fact, I have work that occupies me 10 or more hours a day.

Generally, I don’t have time to read the entire blog; but when I come across something striking and have time to answer, I do so. I always try to be rational and factual, and always avoid personal attacks. That draws fire from a few bloggers here when I disagree with them; and those bloggers have no qualms about getting personal because that is their only defense:

“I don’t know if you’re an American, if you live here, if you grew up here and what your beef is.”

I have already answered the first three of these questions several times in the past and will not do so again because they are personal and thus not germane to the discussion.

As to the fourth question, “what your beef is,” this should be clear from my post. To rephrase my post: We ignore what foreigners think of us at our peril.

Mrs Smith: “tactical strategy” is oxymoronic because tactics and strategy are different levels of action that are often contradictory.
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Tactics and strategy go together like hand and glove. Each word has a different connotation relative to the entire intent of the writer. And, I know you know that… [eyeroll]

“often” is not an absolute word that used as/with your example, contradicts your own statement.

Absolute words such as Never, Not, No, cannot be used in your argument because they would not apply successfully in any way bolstering your opinion. Therefore, jeswezy, please tell me you will not be airborne tomorrow afternoon so I can read my book in Peace!

Sorry jeswezy, I have to go now.. it’s been fun toying with your word salad. I especially liked the addition of slivered red onions amping up the experience. tres chic..

Shadowfax: “… just bouncing back on to tear up some comments by some folks”
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Oh dear, what have I done now? Who did I tear up? My comment to Mrs Smith was good-natured, I thought. My comment to Basil99 was a strong reaction to the idea of not giving a fuck about what other countries think of us. On any subject, including women’s rights. And then insisting on judging other countries, as if they gave a fuck.

Whatever, “what’s up with being off the blog for days” is very simple: I’ve had so much work over the past ten days that I haven’t even been able to read the blog, just the articles.

A longtime D.C. political operative indicated this afternoon that as many as 30 Democratic members of Congress will join with the Republican House majority in voting in favor of a Contempt of Congress charge against Eric Holder should it come to a vote later this week.

They are throwing out the racism charge big time. So far Boehner ain’t blinking.

More than a few whispers about impeachment. They got something. It better be enough or this could blow up in our faces bad. Hanging way out there for Issa and Co right now. They better have what they promise or a bunch of us are gonna get stung bad on this. Right now though, there are as many as 30 Dems hinting they will vote for contempt. Got to think some of those votes are as much of a big f-ck you to Pelosi as anything. I would have had the vote on Wed instead of Thurs. Will get drowned out by the coverage on Obamacare ruling. Guessing that’s what Boehner wanted though. He’s still nervous. He isn’t running away, but he isn’t exactly throwing heavy punches yet either.

Nice to see all the work coming toghether though. Wish the Old Man was more aware of how good we are doing right now. Shit. You hang tough too. Things getting done now. Enjoy the ride. But be ready for the bumps. No way we come out of this without some scrapes.

We are not the center of the world. Those of us who think so, are subject to what the French call ‘nombrilisme’, which translates literally as ‘bellybutton-ism’, an obsession with one’s own bellybutton.

======================

Heh. Doesn’t that come from Greek ‘omphalos’, navel, meaning thinking one’s own hometown is the navel of the world, ie center of the universe?

But “…harsh when the conversation starts out that way”: My comment was blowback to Basil99’s statement that she didn’t give a rat’s ass what other countries think of us. I think that was a very confrontational and a very harsh manner of speech, and by comparison my reply was pretty mild and rational.

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Steve Israel’s message is clear to an increasing number of Democrat candidates who want to win in November: stay away from the Democrat’s national convention.

Joe Manchin, Governor Earl Ray Tomblin and Rep. Nick Rahall of W.Va. are staying away, as well as Pennsylvania’s Mark Critz, New York’s Kathy Hochul and Bill Owens. It’s as if Barack Obama is throwing a party and key Democrats are saying, no thanks, I’ll pass.

Reuters pronounces it a “gathering to fete Obama,” then goes on to call it “a particularly sensitive issue for Democratic candidates….” That may be the first time anyone has ever said a Democrat in a tight race was being “sensitive.”

“(F)our days of mingling with Democratic leaders could turn off independent voters before the November 6 election … Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill, one of the Democratic Party’s most vulnerable candidates, will not attend, an aide said.”

Democrats Senator John Tester will also not be attending. Democrats lost 63 seats to Republicans empowered by the Tea Party movement in 2010. Scott Walker recently won a recount by a larger margin than he initially won election. If Democrats hope to turn that momentum around in November, the sitting President, Barack Obama, is most likely not going to be part of the equation.

‘Nombrilism’ is a neologism from the 70s that the French invented to describe themselves. Actually, it was the former colonists repatriating from the Empire who scoffed at the native French for worrying so much about what was happening in their little ‘Hexagon’, i.e. continental France, with no concern about the outside world and no desire to learn foreign languages, etc.

When I dropped the word on my girlfriend in New York, she adopted it immediately, saying New Yorkers were nombrilistic. She’s right. I lived for many years in or near NYC, and I know they think the world stretches from the Hudson River to the East River and the various bridges lead to foreign countries.

There are some stats that the actions by O on the immigration issue are making a big difference in some key states. I guess I don’t understand that, when the majority of the people state they want our boarders protected.

Every time I see a new poll on Obama approval ratings, I am astounded he is doing as well as they report.

My theory is that when pollsters call, many people are afraid to tell their true feelings for fear of being considered racist, or that the pollsters will report them to thug team Obama.

Obama’s issues raising money are problematic and, in my humble opinion, directly tied to voter dissatisfaction that isn’t being picked up in the polls. Another problem is his desperate ideas his team is coming up with–like “give me your wedding/anniversary/birthday gifts,” and the” give me $3.00 and you might win lunch with me.” Really? Hawking for $3.00?

He is drying up his well in Hollywood; they aren’t going to be giving him $15 million more anytime soon. He killed donations from Wall Street and big corporations because of his constant vilification of them as the cause of our pathetic economy.

If this keeps up, the convention will be reduced to two days, poorly attended two days unless they start grabbing people off the streets and pay them to attend.

BTW, Obama is a multi-millionaire. Why isn’t he digging into his own pockets to help his re-election effort?

US regulators are poised to file civil charges against Philip Falcone, the hedge fund billionaire, over allegations that he borrowed money improperly from his fund to pay his tax bill, according to reports.

Mr Falcone, who was one of a handful of financiers who made a fortune betting on the collapse of America’s sub-prime housing market, also faces allegations from the Securities and Exchange Commission that some investors in his hedge fund, Harbinger, received preferential treatment in 2009 as it was restructured, it was reported.

“Any allegations by the SEC of improprieties by Mr Falcone or Harbinger are neither supported by the facts nor the law,” said Matthew Dontzin, a lawyer representing Mr Falcone.

“Should a lawsuit be brought, it will be contested vigorously.”

Action by the SEC would cap a torrid six months for Mr Falcone, a former professional hockey player.

Earlier this year Harbinger’s largest bet backfired when LightSquared, a telecommunications company it funded, filed for bankruptcy after regulators blocked a plan to build a high-speed wireless network across America.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A federal judge has refused to stop Florida from removing potentially non-U.S. citizens from its rolls.

The U.S. Department of Justice sued the state to halt the purge, arguing it was going on too close to a federal election.

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle said Wednesday that there was nothing in federal voting laws that prevent the state from identifying non-U.S. citizens even if it comes less than 90 days before the Aug. 14 election.

Hinkle ruled that federal laws are designed to block states from removing eligible voters close to an election. He said they are not designed to stop states from blocking voters who should have never been allowed to cast ballots in the first place.

Shadowfax
June 27th, 2012 at 2:59 pm
Every time I see a new poll on Obama approval ratings, I am astounded he is doing as well as they report.

——–
This is all crap, he is not going to get a second term unless the votes are stolen.
He is toast.

I just believe this to be true, now, more than ever before.
___________________________________

Same. The only way he was drug over the finish line last time was historic voter turnout for youth and black folks combined with an unmotivated GOP base. Even if his horrendous record were not part of the equation, does anyone really think those two groups are going to turn out to support him in numbers approaching 08? Does anyone believe independents and GOP are unmotivated to get him the hell out of office in 2012?

Keeping Barry’s Administration and their relationship with the NYTimes/ MSM in mind though this entire piece, there are some good parts about Hillary and what she is doing/done/will do.

—–

Hillary Clinton’s Last Tour as a Rock-Star Diplomat

(Hillary) Clinton told me she had not yet made specific plans for her future, but then revealed some, or “pieces of things,” as she put it. She intends to write another book and to pursue philanthropy, championing women and girls, as ever. She hinted that people had floated some ideas already, “but there’s too much to do. I can’t stop and worry about what’s next.” She sounds sincere when she says she simply wants a rest after four decades of public life. On a lovely spring evening in Rome last year, Clinton joined the traveling press corps for bellinis at Harry’s Bar on Via Vittorio Veneto and was asked, again, what she intended to do next. She laughed it off as always, saying she would love to return and linger right there. “What sentient being wouldn’t?” she told me later, granting permission to describe what had been an off-the-record happy hour. It doesn’t really seem likely, if only because it is difficult for those who know her best to imagine her stopping for long. It would be foolish to assume this is Clinton’s last act.

“I have no doubt about the fact that whatever she does, she will be out there working on the causes that she’s passionate about,” Melanne Verveer, who has known her for four decades, said. “I think the demands on her, the requests to her — if she doesn’t engage in politics anymore, if that is truly behind her — will be so great. In many ways she’s become a world brand. And you know, how the Hillary brand gets used, I think, remains to be seen.”

You are, at the very least, dissembling and misrepresenting my comments. I have not “judged” any other country. Have I “judged” radical Islamism? Yes, to the extent I don’t want them in the U.S. I do not like their policies towards women and I find them a dangerous and despicable group.

About my frequent posting recently, as a matter of fact I was going to address that and let others know the reason is I am just coming out of a ten month medical situation, I am in between projects and, I freely admit, at the moment I have far more time to post than usual.

What I don’t have time for is going back over several threads, picking and choosing from one blogger’s entries and then responding days later.

Oh well. Knock yourself out. I am rather flattered you have taken the time to follow me.

But please stop saying I have “judged” other countries. As a matter of fact, I recently took a 7 country tour of Europe and I was quite impressed with the people, the places and the history.

Unless the O’administration/DNC starts threatening Congressfolks like they did at the convention with the delegates.

———

Holder in peril as Dems break ranks on contempt resolution

The congressional contempt vote against Attorney General Eric Holder is looking more and more like a fait accompli, as House Speaker John Boehner presses ahead with a Thursday floor vote and conservative Democrats one-by-one announce they will side with Republicans.

At least four Democrats so far have said they plan to vote to hold Holder in contempt over his refusal to turn over Operation Fast and Furious documents. Sources told Fox News that roughly 20 are likely to break ranks.

Hinkle ruled that federal laws are designed to block states from removing eligible voters close to an election. He said they are not designed to stop states from blocking voters who should have never been allowed to cast ballots in the first place.

======================

What doubletalk! So, are states EVER allowed to remove ELIGIBLE voters?

There are some stats that the actions by O on the immigration issue are making a big difference in some key states. I guess I don’t understand that, when the majority of the people state they want our boarders protected.

why would his actions make a difference in these key states?

=========================

Haven’t seen the story, but obviously states along the borders would care more, also states where a great many illegals are competing for jobs. And otoh, states that need them to pick crops will care.

going back over several threads, picking and choosing from one blogger’s entries and then responding days later.

=================

This is not a chat room. Anything that’s been posted, no matter how long ago, is fair game to be answered, at any time. (Tho if you’re quoting from a past thread, it would be nice to say which thread, or include a direct link to that post. Which can be done by right-clicking on the date of the post, which is shown in a different color under the poster’s name.)

White House press secretary Jay Carney was asked a question today on why President Obama has not further communicated with Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper over the raging wildfires in his state. The President’s last correspondence with the Governor was June 12th, 15 days ago.

Colorado is midway through its worst wildfire season in a decade with as many as 32,000 residents having been evacuated since the fires started. Nearly two dozen homes have been demolished near Rocky Mountain National Park and Reuters cites up to 15000 acres of land as being consumed.

Laurence Tribe: I think my former student, John Roberts, will vote to uphold ObamaCare

—–> (I should have guessed that you would post something that would favor Obama)

You are really starting to worry me.
*******************

Is this the same Laurence Tribe who judged Obama’s mind incisive, his personality magnetic? The same Laurence Tribe who considered Obama more colleague than student and called him “my most amazing research assistant”? That Laurence Tribe??

BTW, that shoulder issue we discussed months ago is finally almost resolved. Rotator cuff tear AND frozen shoulder syndrome. Physical Therapy 3X a week was pain and torture but seems to have done the trick. Or maybe it’s that I reached the “thawing” phase. Who knows. Good news is surgery is not in my immediate future, for now. It’s such a relief to be relatively pain free after 10 months.

Chickens Come Home To Roost: Largest Municipal Bankruptcy In US History Set To Be Filed Today
—DrewM.

Stockton, California…busted.

The budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 calls for defaulting on $10.2 million in debt payments and cutting $11.2 million in employee pay and benefits under union contracts that could be voided by the bankruptcy court. The city of 292,000 may file its petition as soon as today.
…

The city has cut services so much the last two years that “public safety is at a crisis level,” officials said in a June 5 fiscal report. Unemployment, at 15.4 percent in April, was almost double the national average according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Stockton ranked third in murders last year among large California cities, behind Los Angeles and Oakland, according to FBI data.

The collapse of the housing market left Stockton to contend with mounting retiree health-care costs and eroding tax dollars in the wake of the recession, amid accounting errors that overstated municipal revenues. One in every 195 homes in Stockton’s metropolitan area received a foreclosure filing in May, the fifth-highest rate in the U.S., according to RealtyTrac Inc.

If it’s any consolation to Stockton, they probably won’t be the biggest municipality to file for bankruptcy for long.

I bet the bondholders, workers, retirees and residents wish they had gotten their own Chris Christie or Scott Walker a few years back. Lower pay and benefits > no pay and benefits.

Local CBS affiliates are reporting that Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) won’t be returning imminently, one day after he took a leave of absence for “exhaustion.” According to sources close to Jackson, he’s “facing a serious health challenge.” Staffers don’t know where Jackson is, and they say that his family doesn’t want the press to know where he is.

Jackson has missed dozens of votes this month; he’s currently dealing with a House Ethics Committee investigation, recently became embroiled in a sex scandal, and one of his key fundraisers was indicted this week.
…………………………..

Good to hear your doing well Basil, pain free is a relief. I am awaiting surgery till Jan. I don’t want to screw up my little future retirement, sisters of charity that they are, are d/cing it after DEC. If you are vested, which I am, you will receive one, but the percent they put in this final year is based on accrued work hours. It just made sense to put it off.

On Tuesday, Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) announced that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has denied his request for the Virginia State Police to join the 287(g) program which trains local and state law enforcement to identify illegal aliens in custody for possible deportation.

In August 2010, McDonnell asked DHS to allow 28 state troopers to receive the specified training in order to identify illegal aliens charged with serious crimes such as “major drug offenses or violent offenses such as murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, and kidnapping, as well as DUI offenses.”

After nine months with no answer, the governor sent a letter to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, stating: “We have patiently waited nine months for formal approval and the time to act is now. Virginia meets all the qualifications and has proven to be an excellent partner state and I ask you to approve our application without further delay.”
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McDonnell continued: “We must retain the right to remove the most dangerous illegal aliens from our borders, and 287(g) agreements have been approved across the country for that purpose. Virginia must have the ability to exercise this authority statewide.”

The Homeland Security Act of 2002 allows DHS to grant state police forces the authority to perform some immigration enforcement functions such as deportations, if those states enter into a 287 (g) agreement with the federal government.

Of course, the Obama administration abruptly ended the federal government’s 287(g) agreement with the state of Arizona after the Supreme Court upheld a key portion of the state’s immigration law known as SB1070.

In recent months, several high-profile crimes have been committed in Virginia by illegal aliens:

It turns out the Obama administration ended a long-standing contract, leaving the Forest Service with only 11 tankers to battle 50 wildfires that were burning nationwide. A decade ago, the Forest Service had 40 firefighting tankers.

The Obama administration canceled the government’s contract with Aero Union — a company with 60 employees that had been under contract with the Forest Service for 50 years. Though it canceled that contract, the administration had no plan for an immediate replacement. Aero Union CEO Britt Gourley told Human Events the administration provided no details on why the contract was ended.

“They didn’t want to talk about it,” Gourley said of Obama administration officials.

PRINCIPLES
We, the 2012 Republican Party of Texas, believe in this platform and expect our elected leaders to
uphold these truths through acknowledgement and action. We believe in:
1. Strict adherence to the original intent of the Declaration of Independence and U.S. and Texas
Constitutions.
2. The sanctity of human life, created in the image of God, which should be protected from
fertilization to natural death.
3. Preserving American and Texas Sovereignty and Freedom.
4. Limiting government power to those items enumerated in the U.S. and Texas Constitutions.
5. Personal Accountability and Responsibility.
6. Self-sufficient families, founded on the traditional marriage of a natural man and a natural
woman.
7. Having an educated population, with parents having the freedom of choice for the education of
their children.
8. Americans having the right to be safe in their homes, on their streets, and in their communities,
and the unalienable right to defend themselves.
9. A free enterprise society unencumbered by government interference or subsidies.
10. Honoring all of those that serve and protect our freedom.
11. “The laws of nature and nature’s God” as our Founding Fathers believed.

As fire rages out of control on the edge of Colorado Springs, threatening lives and property, it is time we listen to those who have warned us about the negative effect environmentalists and President Barack Obama have had on the federal government’s ability to fight fires.

Crickets in the WhiteHouse………nah, I hear sleeves ripping and the smell of chain smoking.

—

WASHINGTON — As the nation’s capital prepared Wednesday for the Supreme Court’s long-awaited ruling on President Obama’s healthcare law, the White House was unusually quiet.

The ruling on Obama’s biggest domestic accomplishment could be among the most consequential events in his presidency, but he will learn about it at the same time as the rest of the nation, receiving no advanced warning as he does for such government actions as the release of unemployment statistics.

So, a White House that so often pre-spins the news has maintained a studied silence about Obama’s plans. His staff won’t even say whether he will make a public appearance or statement Thursday, a day he is scheduled to spend in meetings at the White House.

“I cannot speculate on all the various permutations,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said.

The administration, like the rest of Washington, was running high on adrenaline with no real reason to sprint. “We’re all hurry-up-and-waiting,” Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said.

I won’t reprint her words here, you can read them for yourself…the irony is how many more felt just like she did and now can see how very, very wrong they were…the most ironic thing she says is in emphasizing the “Clinton narcissism”

snip…a few excerpts…

The Clintons’ narcissism (and yes, I know, it’s an overused term but if there was ever a moment for it in our national life, this is it) perfumed every bit of Hillary’s campaign, and it leaked down to her contributors and followers. “Were you in it for me?” was her funniest line of the night.

…snip…

There’s an expression for this — narcissistic mortification — and you can smell it all the way from Denver.

******************************

oh how wrong she was…she could not see the narcissim right before her O loving eyes…kind of reminds me of Susan Sarandon and her undying love for her hero, John Edwards…

…they were all so, so wrong…and Hillary still stands tall and is beloved by the whole world…

I pondered whether to post that earlier and was still debating with myself about it but I’m glad you went ahead and bit the bullet.

This is exactly what I DON’T want to see in the U.S.

I watched the clip and while the Christian group was clearly there to push buttons they had every right to protest in the name of free speech and the cops would not let them. Instead, the Muslims were protected and the Christians thrown out of the event.

This is unfriggin-believable.

Police departments nationwide walked on pins and needles to toe the PC line when dealing with OWS. The military does the same when dealing with muslim extremists like Hassan. Yet other Americans are not extended the same courtesy?

Oh, and did you notice one of the police officers was a former cast member on that American Muslim show?

Sorry to hear your shoulder problem is ongoing and you will need surgery. I was trying to avoid it at all costs. The idea of being in a sling for weeks, needing to hire someone to come in and help me keep up with the flock and the cottage was not a pleasant one.

I agree with you, they were there to “push button”, but in this country, there is a first amendent, and that has to be respected, and throwing stones is something they can do in other countries, but not here.

Nah, never saw that show. Double standard all the way, I wonder if that was one of the points of the “pushing buttons” protestors, to show the double standard?

As fire rages out of control on the edge of Colorado Springs, threatening lives and property, it is time we listen to those who have warned us about the negative effect environmentalists and President Barack Obama have had on the federal government’s ability to fight fires.

======================

And here I thought it was budget cuts and firefighters’ salaries and stuff like that.

I wonder if that was one of the points of the “pushing buttons” protestors, to show the double standard?

I watched the whole clip and yes, the protestors had been at the event last year and had filed lawsuits about the cops refusal to defend their freedom of speech rights then.

They were definitely intent on making a point. But they were entirely peaceful and did not retaliate despite being pelted with stones, bottles, cans and whatever else the nasty crowd could find. One guy had a bloody gash on his forehead.

As fire rages out of control on the edge of Colorado Springs, threatening lives and property, it is time we listen to those who have warned us about the negative effect environmentalists and President Barack Obama have had on the federal government’s ability to fight fires.

Much of what’s burning is the Pike National Forest, which is federal property. Yet it took almost three days to get federal fire fighting aircraft off the ground to begin dumping meaningful loads of slurry to slow the fire’s growth. Because the Forest Service has a shortage of planes, Air Force C-130s finally joined the effort Monday afternoon to battle a fire that began Saturday morning.

Part of the problem is red tape and vague policy regarding use of military aircraft to put out fires, even when they burn federal property. Part of it involves intentional interference with aerial fire suppression. Part of the problem is the Obama administration.

Environmentalists have fought the use of slurry for years, which may or may not explain why Obama seems to lack enthusiasm for a robust tanker fleet. Environmentalists sued to stop the use of fire retardant after it killed 50 steelhead trout in the Santa Ynez River near Santa Barbara, Calif., in 2009. An earlier lawsuit involved the accidental dumping of between 1,000 and 2,000 gallons of fire retardant into Oregon’s Fall River in 2002, a mistake that killed all fish in the river. That mishap involved a slurry formula that is no longer used.

As a result of the most recent lawsuit, the Forest Service adopted rules that prevent dropping slurry within 300 feet of streams and lakes except when human lives are at risk. Forest officials say the rules won’t harm firefighting efforts.

We hope that is true. Even if it is, we know that a shortage of planes to drop retardants most certainly hinders firefighting throughout the country. That’s common sense.

Former Gazette editorial page editor Sean Paige confronts “the Green threat to our economy, property and freedoms” on his website MonkeyWrenchingAmerica.com. Just days before the Waldo Canyon fire began, Paige explained how the Obama administration is doing an election-year scramble to get the U.S. Forest Service the air support it needs to battle what promises to be an explosive wildfire season.

“Less than a year ago, the same administration seemed to be doing its best to leave the Forest Service ill-equipped to deal with the mounting wildfire threat, by summarily cancelling a contract with a company that furnished roughly one third of the wildfire-fighting tankers in the agency’s already-depleted fleet. That action might loom large as calls mount for an investigation into why the agency’s air assets seem inadequate to meet the threat.”

Washington-based Human Events magazine reported in September of 2011 that nearly half of the federal government’s air tankers sat idle at a California airport, as wildfires ripped through national forests throughout California, Texas, New Mexico, and other states.

It turns out the Obama administration ended a long-standing contract, leaving the Forest Service with only 11 tankers to battle 50 wildfires that were burning nationwide. A decade ago, the Forest Service had 40 firefighting tankers.

The Obama administration canceled the government’s contract with Aero Union — a company with 60 employees that had been under contract with the Forest Service for 50 years. Though it canceled that contract, the administration had no plan for an immediate replacement. Aero Union CEO Britt Gourley told Human Events the administration provided no details on why the contract was ended.

“They didn’t want to talk about it,” Gourley said of Obama administration officials.

A Forest Service official said the contract was cancelled over safety concerns, but the company had recently passed its annual inspection.

We can try connecting dots and presume the Obama administration is more enthused with environmental activism than effective fire suppression. That would be speculation, as it is impossible to know any person’s true motive. We know for sure that our country’s fleet of firefighting aircraft has diminished during Obama’s reign. Meanwhile, fires are igniting all over Colorado, far exceeding government’s ability to quickly contain them.

the Forest Service adopted rules that prevent dropping slurry within 300 feet of streams and lakes except when human lives are at risk. Forest officials say the rules won’t harm firefighting efforts.

=========================

Obama won’t do even simple, popular things for his base. So it’s rather silly to accuse him of pandaring to his base by doing some sneaky, small-effect thing that his base would condemn if they did hear about it.

Such as neglecting forest fighting planes because of restrictions about using some kinds of slurry within 300 feet of streams — or sending guns to Mexico as some sort of publicity for US gun control.

“Speaking of predictable hacks, here’s Chris Matthews warming up his “is this a new Dred Scott?” routine for tomorrow, just in case. And Patches Kennedy is warning of some sort of tea-party apocalypse if the law is upheld, which is not untrue if you define “apocalypse” in terms of “massive voter turnout.” Exit quotation from Timothy Carney, weighing the consequences of left-wing epistemic closure: “The truth is we’ve entered an era where many liberal commentators are willing to dismiss any argument as illegitimate just because they don’t like it.” Click the image to watch.”

“Probably the worst outcome we could see is a 5-4 decision,” said Democratic Caucus Vice Chairman Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.). “I think that would go a long way to confirming this growing belief in the gut of the American people that the Supreme Court no longer cares so much about the constitution; it cares more about politics.”

For months, party leaders have publicly insisted that the court would uphold the law in its entirety. But now Democrats are shifting gears, warning the public of what would be lost if the court strikes it down.”

Notice the shift. I mentioned this yesterday, with Obama making the same tactical shift — laying down a campaign theme of running against a supposedly politicized, radical Supreme Court.

If Democrats are saying “the worst thing” would be a 5-4 law voiding the entirety of the law– including all those supposedly good things, like insurance for “children” and closing the donut hole — do you get why I am suspecting that maybe “the worst thing” is precisely the thing that’s happened?

Earlier I speculated, meekly, that maybe we’d have 7-2 in favor of voiding the mandate itself, with only a 5-4 decision in favor of voiding the entirety of the law.

That was a bit of speculation based on Ginsberg’s statement that severability was the name of the game. Perhaps there was a larger minority to strike the mandate, with the real battle, the contentiously close one, over full void or partial void.

That was speculation.

But notice how Democratic talking points are aligning to shift into that posture — to not contest the mandate ruling so much, but a 5-4 ruling for a complete overturn, about the donut hole and such things.

Why does Obama hate America’s environment? His non-reaction to the gulf oil spill back in 2010, and now his anemic response to the horrific wildfires out west tells me that he just doesn’t give a sh!t. Surprise! I believe he is out to destroy the US from within. Environmentally, militarily, and fiscally irresponsible is he. Yet, it’s not by accident. He needs to be booted from office yesterday.

gonzotx
June 26th, 2012 at 11:07 pm
Nora Ephron died today. I did love her movies. She had two lists in her last book, things she will miss and not miss.
I felt sad she named Clarence Thomas and Joe Lieberman, and of course Fox, as things she will not miss. I am not necessarily a fan of either of the men, but, I don’t see why that was necessary.
————–
I thought the exact same thing.

No point being nervous, nothing you or i can do about the decision. My gut is, it will be overturned simply because Obama really is not showing any confidence and the sheer force of rage coming from left quarters suggests they already know whats coming. The WH is in complete cricket mode. I think they are worried, his actions this week suggest to me he already knows the ruling.

How BAD do things have to get before Obama is removed. Worried about Hispanics crossing the border? Bet half of them are foreign born Muslims..
_________________

Christians stoned by crowd in Dearbornistan..

At the 2012 Arab Festival in Dearborn a small group of Christians holding Christian signs was physically assaulted by a large group of Muslims with bottles, stones, glass, concrete and other objects; they were verbally assaulted too. The Christians had gathered peacefully and were perfectly within their rights to express themselves the way they did. Legally and constitutionally they had every right to be where they were and do what they were doing. They were attacked because their Muslim attackers didn’t like them or their message and in the end they were forced to leave for their own safety.

All Americans’ right to free speech and freedom of expression have been attacked in Dearborn.